The Catholic - Labor Network

Documents & Articles which concern Catholic and Labor Issues Papal Social Encyclicals Other Catholic Social Teachings Catholic Hospitals & Labor Catholic Schools & Labor Msgr. George Higgins Catholic Worker Connection General Articles of Interest  Home Page  The Catholic-Labor Network E-Mail List  The Catholic-Labor Network is dependent on interested persons sharing their activities struggles, victories and prayers with other like minded men and women of faith. We strongly invite all those who visit this page, and who share  a common interest in issues effecting the Catholic Church and the Labor Movement to subscribe.  Occasionally, notices will be sent when this page is updated.  When important events happen, we will pass on the information through the e-mail list, and most of all, the e-mail list is a means by which we can pray and support each other. Some Catholic and Labor Links The Holy See  The National Conference of Catholic Bishops  Human Rights for Workers  The Catholic Social Doctrine Page  The Houston Catholic Worker  Catholic Online  National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice  The Seamless Garment Network  The International Labour Organization  The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations  The International Transport Workers Federation Union Web

Farewell to a Great Labor Champion: Lane Kirkland By Msgr. George G. Higgins The Yardstick October 11, 1999  A memorial service for Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO, was held Sept. 23 -- a month after he died of lung cancer at age 77 -- at his alma mater, Georgetown University in Washington. President Clinton, Henry Kissinger and the Polish labor reformer Lech Walesa were among those who joined in paying tribute to Kirkland. In the invocation I gave at the opening of the service, I began by turning to the prophet Isaiah, who warned us so many centuries ago in the Hebrew Scriptures that obedience to God's law comes with a price to each of us -- as individuals and as the nations of the world. It is in Isaiah, I noted, that we hear what sort of fasting God truly asks of us, namely, "releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry; sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them; not turning your back on your own." Kirkland spent his entire adult life working through the labor movement to carry out Isaiah's stern, very demanding injunction. He did so in what we now know to have been both the best and the worst of times. Speaking of this in my invocation, I said: "They were the best of times in a way because of our extraordinary scientific and technological progress. But they were the worst of times because the century now drawing to a close ... was one of the most violent in recorded history. It was a violent and bloody century in which dictatorships on both the left and the right undermined freedom and democracy by first destroying independent and freely elected unions.   "The lesson of this devastating experience was that we are not likely to have a free and democratic society anywhere in the world without a free and democratic labor movement. Lane Kirkland understood this instinctively and felt it to the marrow of his bones.   "Like his predecessor and long-time mentor, the late George Meany, he worked with unflagging zeal to support trade-union freedom and political democracy whenever and wherever in the world it was threatened. His creed, from which he never wavered, was the same as that of Meany, who, shortly before he died, stated the creed as follows: 'No democracy without human rights, no human rights without democracy and no trade-union rights without either. That is our belief; that is our creed.'   "Lane Kirkland's unflagging efforts to implement this creed at home and abroad, and especially in more recent years in post-war Poland, will stand forever as a historic contribution to the cause of freedom and democracy.... May we honor his memory in the best of all possible ways by giving our all as he did to promote this challenging but noble cause both here at home and around the world." I concluded the invocation with this personal word about Kirkland's unassuming modesty: "I was privileged to accompany him on two of his several missions to Poland to confer with Lech Walesa and the other leaders of Solidarity. Observing him at close range, I was impressed by his total lack of self-importance. He did not seek the limelight nor did he seek to get his name in the headlines. He had come to Poland to help Solidarity, not to enhance his own image or to play the role of a celebrity.   "For his good example in this regard and for many other reasons, I will miss him as a friend. And the nation, indeed the world community, will also miss him as a dedicated champion of freedom and human rights."   Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre