Loyola Marymount Faculty Rally to Demand Union Rights

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On Tuesday December 9, 2025, hundreds of Loyola Marymount University non-tenured faculty and their supporters rallied to demand that the university resume collective bargaining with their chosen union, SEIU Local 721. 

For more than a century, Catholic Social Teaching has expressly held that workers have the right to organize in unions and bargain collectively. That’s just what the non-tenure track faculty at LMU did this year, voting for representation by SEIU Local 721. But in September, the University abruptly ended negotiations and announced that it would no longer recognize or bargain with the union. Moreover, in order to avoid facing an Unfair Labor Practice charge before the National Labor Relations Board, the university had the audacity to cite its religious identity, claiming that under the First Amendment it was exempt from NLRB jurisdiction! 

In October, the Catholic Labor Network directed letters to LMU President, Board of Trustees and Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez expressing our concern about the situation. Referencing the Bishops’ 1986 Pastoral letter Economic Justice for All, which affirmed that employees of Catholic institutions enjoy the right to organize in unions, we asked the University to resume bargaining with the union chosen by the faculty, and encouraged the Archbishop to investigate the university’s apparent violation of Church teaching. Though a few members of the Board of Trustees did respond to our letters, the Catholic Labor Network has not, to date, received a response from either the university or Archbishop Gomez.

CLN Submission for National Pastoral on the Laity

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The USCCB Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth coordinated a consultation for a new national pastoral document on the laity. The Catholic Labor Network hosted three synodal listening sessions in October, 2025. This is a summary of what CLN submitted to the USCCB.

Across all consultations, participants discerned a common movement of the Spirit: a renewed awareness of the laity’s baptismal vocation and a deep desire to align the Church’s teaching, witness, and structures with the Gospel’s call to justice and love.

Their conversations revealed both realism and hope — realism about the challenges of polarization, institutional inertia, and inconsistency; hope in the courage and creativity of lay disciples who are already transforming the Church from within.

There were 5 main takeaways across the many conversations:

  1. Living Baptism through Work and Witness

    The most active theme across sessions was the integration of faith and work. Participants described baptism as a lifelong call to live as priest, prophet, and king: sanctifying daily labor, speaking prophetically against injustice, and exercising leadership through service. They see their professional and community work as sacred — not separate from Church life, but its extension into the world.

    Many called the dignity of work a life issue, linking their ministry with the defense of human dignity and the common good. They emphasized that Catholic Social Teaching is not an optional add-on but the living expression of the Gospel in public life.

  2. Co-Responsibility and Synodality

    A strong current of reflection focused on co-responsibility. Participants understand their role not as passive recipients of pastoral care but as partners in the Church’s mission. They long for a culture of shared discernment and collaboration between clergy and laity, rooted in synodality and mutual respect.

    They also voiced that co-responsibility must be invited and modeled from leadership. When clergy and bishops honor lay expertise, the Church becomes more credible and united in its witness to the world.

  3. The Holy Spirit’s Work of Renewal

    Participants saw the Holy Spirit actively renewing the Church through grassroots movements, lay networks, and ministries that unite faith with justice. The Spirit is at work wherever Catholics listen to one another, empower the marginalized, and act with courage and humility.

    They testified to seeing the Spirit in intercultural parish communities, in collective discernment, and in the perseverance of believers who continue to labor for justice despite discouragement. “Things move quickly when the Holy Spirit is at work,” one noted — capturing the sense of momentum that accompanied the discussions.

  4. Hopes and Concerns for the Future

    Participants expressed both gratitude and concern. Their hopes include the rise of new lay leadership, expansion of grassroots chapters, and greater preaching and education on Catholic Social Teaching. Their concerns focus on the Church’s credibility when Catholic employers fail to honor workers’ rights, and on the gap between social teaching and institutional practice.

    They believe renewal will come from conversion — a willingness of the Church to listen, learn, and act alongside the laity in building just relationships, both within and beyond its walls.

  5. The Joy that Sustains the Mission

    Despite honest frustration, the tone of the listening sessions was joyful and forward-looking. Participants spoke of “joy that is not toxic positivity,” grounded instead in trust that God is at work through ordinary people.

    They see joy as both fuel and fruit of mission — the quiet confidence that the Gospel can still change hearts, workplaces, and systems.This joy expressed itself in laughter, solidarity, and gratitude for belonging to a Church that, though imperfect, continues to call and send.

The overarching takeaway is clear: the Holy Spirit is animating a renewal of the Church through the witness of the laity. Participants affirmed that the future of Catholic life will depend on deepening co-responsibility, recovering the dignity of work, and embodying Catholic Social Teaching in every level of Church life.

They envision a Church that listens before it lectures, collaborates rather than controls, and lives its teachings from the ground up. In their words and actions, lay Catholics are revealing that renewal is not a program — it is already happening wherever faith, justice, and joy meet.

Thanks for Immigrants

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GIVE THANKS FOR IMMIGRANTS by Bill Droel


Our flag is the number one symbol of our country. Its design of 13 stripes and 50 stars means unity through pluralism. It represents our belief in a layered government with authority given by citizenry. The flag stands for all the positive values of our experiment in democracy.
There are other symbols of our country. This month features pictures and displays of the harvest rituals and feasts that occurred in the early 1600s in Massachusetts, Virginia and elsewhere. These serene images obviously compress history. They are influenced by famous paintings, including one from 1915, The First Thanksgiving by Jean Louis Ferris (1893-1930) and one from 1943, the still popular Four Freedoms by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978). Thanksgiving was celebrated regionally until 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) designated a national day of Thanksgiving to “Almighty God…for fruitful fields and healthful skies.”
The Statue of Liberty is another symbol of our beautiful, bounteous country. It is a fitting image to link with Thanksgiving.
Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904), whose Italian parents immigrated to France, was involved with a circle of people who were aware of how France aided our struggle for independence. They considered the United States a model for their own movement for liberty. They raised money to donate a statue symbolizing their appreciation for our country. They wanted the spirit of their gift to keep moving in the sense that the United States would support and sustain liberty among freedom-seeking people around the world.
A preview of the gift appeared at the Philadelphia Expo in 1876, but it took until 1880 before a complete statue was delivered to the United States embassy in Paris.
It wasn’t until 1886, however, that the statue was dedicated in New York’s Upper Bay. In the meantime a private fundraising campaign in our country was needed to secure the statue’s site, particularly to finance its pedestal. Part of the fundraising was the auction of a 14-line sonnet, The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887). Her ancestors were Jewish-Russians who emigrated here before our Revolutionary War. At the time her poem was commissioned, Lazarus, sufficiently known in literary circles, was volunteering at Emigrant Aid Society on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The poem was mostly neglected but in 1903 it was written on a bronze tablet and only in 1945 was it mounted on the statue’s pedestal. The poem and the statue came to represent the generosity of our country’s residents. So thankful, in fact, that we generously open our hearts to “…your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
The statue’s symbolism of thanksgiving is, of course, reinforced by its proximity to Ellis Island, where from 1892 to 1954 many freedom-seeking immigrants entered our country, including my grandmother. (For the record, Ellis Island is mostly in New Jersey and Liberty Island itself is in New York.)
Each generation of arrivals enriched our country with creativity, social capital, unique culture, patriotic service and faith. These are their gift to subsequent generations. Thus our table prayer on November 27th 2025, is not only one of thanks for God’s bounty, and thanks for the privilege of residing in this country, and thanks for the family and friends gathered, but also thanks for our ancestors and for those new arrivals who keep the gift moving.


P.S. Fr. Gary Graf of Chicago is walking all the way from the boyhood home of Robert Prevost/Pope Leo XIV in Dalton, Illinois to Ellis Island to raise awareness about the plight of today’s immigrants. Follow him at www.ourladyoftheheights.org.

Petition: Stand with LMU Faculty for Faith and Justice

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Faithful Catholics and allies stand with the non-tenure track faculty at Loyola Marymount University.

On September 12, 2025, LMU’s Board of Trustees announced that it would no longer recognize the faculty union representing its non-tenure track professors—invoking a “religious exemption” to end collective bargaining. This decision directly contradicts Catholic Social Doctrine, which affirms that the right to organize comes from God, not the NLRB.

The Church has been clear—from Rerum Novarum to Economic Justice for All:

“All church institutions must fully recognize the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively with the institution through whatever association or organization they freely choose.”

Last week, LMU’s faculty voted by 90% to authorize a strike if the administration refuses to return to the bargaining table. They hope it doesn’t come to that—but they are prepared to act with courage and conscience to defend their rights and their students’ future.

As members and friends of the Catholic Labor Network, we call on Loyola Marymount University’s leadership to honor its Catholic identity by resuming negotiations and recognizing the union chosen by its faculty.

We stand in solidarity with LMU’s faculty, with SEIU, and with all workers striving to exercise their God-given right to organize for the common good.

We urge LMU’s President, Board of Trustees, and Jesuit leaders to return to the bargaining table in good faith—so that justice, dialogue, and Catholic identity may prevail.

✍️ Add your name in solidarity.

Photo credit: SEIU 721

Pilgrimage to Rome with CLN and the Labor Leaders from Chicago

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This week, Labor Leaders from Chicago, plus a few others from around the country, will journey to Rome as Pilgrims. 2025 is a Jubilee Year and the theme chosen by Pope Francis was “Pilgrims of Hope.” At a time when working people in the United States are under attack like never before from their own government: with hundreds of thousands of Federal Employees having Collective Bargaining Rights stripped away, even more laid off, the agencies designed to protect workers like the NLRB defunded and powerless, and a federal budget that strips millions of the poor from having health care, this is the time that we need hope, fraternity and humility.

We know that no matter the time that we are in, no matter the power of those that are attacking workers, we are not alone. We will never be alone. Christ lived as we lived, in the home of a worker. Our Church teaches us to stand In solidarity with workers, immigrants and the poor.

While in Rome, union leaders from the Chicago Federation of Labor, UNITE HERE, Service Employees International Union, Teamsters, International Association of Machinists, Laborers Union, and the Catholic Labor Network will have a true pilgrimage together: attending a Mass everyday, touring holy sites throughout Rome, passing through 3 of the Holy Doors, meeting with the Dicastery for Integral Human Development to discuss The Future of Work – Labor after Laudato Si, Artificial Intelligence and Migration, meeting with Italian Unions about Faith and Organizing, and the high point – a private Audience with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican.

It’s my hope that these shared experiences over the next six days will lead all us who are attending to be able to find hope in these difficult moments, give us the encouragement to continue working for justice and provide us with moments of grace where we can renew our individual faith, trust in Jesus and give us the encouragement to share the Gospel and the teachings of the Church with the world.

We are all sinners beloved by God, and without the humility to ask for his help we are all on our own. As Pope Francis liked to say, “Pray for me.” But pray for all of us on this pilgrimage together. Pray that we all are able to renew the struggle for the Dignity of Workers in this World together.

 

Please follow along for more pictures and reflections from those on pilgrimage on our Facebook and Instagram pages!

 

CLN deplores LMU Administration’s Union-Busting, Supports Workers’ Strike

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The Catholic Labor Network was deeply disappointed to learn that the Loyola Marymount University announced it was ending bargaining with the union chosen by its non-tenure track faculty. Catholic Social Teaching is clear: all workers, including and especially those employed by Catholic institutions, have the right to organize unions for
collective bargaining. The University should immediately reverse its decision and resume bargaining with the union.

The board of the Catholic Labor Network has dispatched a letter to Chairman Paul Viviano of the LMU Board of Trustees explaining why the university’s decision is irreconcilable with Catholic Social Doctrine. We have also addressed a letter to Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, asking him to intervene on behalf of the workers.

We understand that the nontenured faculty are making preparations to strike LMU to secure their rights. We hope that this does not prove to be necessary, that the university will choose to return to modeling Catholic teaching in its relations with its employees. If the workers must strike in order to obtain their rights, we will feel obligated to support their just demands.

Letter to LMU President and Board of Trustees

Letter to Archbishop Gomez

You Can Put a Priest in the Union Hall, on the Picket Line, and in the Pulpit

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On Labor Day, we launched A Labor of Love—our first-ever appeal to revive the Church’s labor ministry. If you’ve already contributed, thank you: your generosity is already at work. If you haven’t yet joined us, let me share why your support is so urgent.

We recently told the story of Alex, a worker who was robbed of his wages when he wasn’t paid in full for cement work he had completed. His story is not unique. Workers’ dignity is strengthened when they know they have the support of their priest and local Church leaders.

That’s why we’re working to revive our Labor Priest Ministry—so that priests can stand alongside workers on the picket line, in the union hall, and in the pulpit.

“I didn’t know the Church actually cares about these things.”

During a recent Catholic Labor Network listening session, Fr. Michael, a long-time diocesan priest and CLN member, shared about a workshop he led for labor union leaders across the country. Afterward, several union members—some in tears—told him the same thing:

“I’m Catholic, but I didn’t know the Church supports workers and their right to unionize.”

For too many, our Church’s strong tradition of supporting workers’ rights remains hidden. Yet since Rerum Novarum in 1891, the Church has consistently taught that work has dignity, that wages must be just, and that workers have the inherent right to organize and collectively bargain.

Through the support of members and donors, the Catholic Labor Network has lived out the teachings of Rerum Novarum by:
 ✊ Walking alongside striking workers in Catholic hospitals and schools;
 📖 Teaching Catholic Social Teaching on labor to hundreds; and
 🤝 Partnering with bishops and universities to lift up the Church’s voice on worker justice.

For thirty years, we’ve accomplished much with volunteers and part-time staff. But the needs of workers—and the call of our faith—demand more.  And we need you to join us.

Thank you to all who have already made a gift.  Your generosity is already being put to work.  For those who have not been able to contribute yet, there is still time.

Your support today will:

  • Train priests to preach and minister to workers;
  • Equip Catholic institutions to become ethical employers;
  • Stand in solidarity with all workers; and
  • Proclaim Catholic Social Doctrine and the Joy of the Gospel.

At the heart of this work is Catholic identity. Will the Church in our lifetime be known as a faithful friend of workers? With your help, it can.

👉 Make your gift today to put a Labor Priest on the picket line and in the pulpit!

Will You Stand Up Against Wage Theft?

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Alex is a concrete worker in Nashville. Five years ago, Alex and his crew poured long days into laying concrete at a local public school and a university campus. But when the job was done, they did not receive the pay they were owed.

Invoices went unanswered. Phone calls were ignored. As a small business owner, Alex couldn’t afford a lawyer. As a subcontractor working in a system with multiple layers of contractors, he was left waiting—ultimately owed nearly $50,000 in back pay and withheld wages. To make sure his employees got paid, Alex had to take out a personal loan.

(Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash)

When the Catholic Labor Network learned that Alex was Catholic and active in his parish, we stepped in. We connected him with his pastor, who joined with others to publicly support Alex when he confronted the school board and contractors. Sadly, even with broad support, Alex was never paid in full.

Stories like Alex’s are not rare. Wage theft is one of the most common forms of worker exploitation in our country. It robs workers and families of their paychecks, steals their time, and violates their God-given dignity.

The Catholic Labor Network has members across the country ready to help workers like Alex and his crew. But our reach and capacity are limited. That’s why we are launching our first-ever fundraising campaign: A Labor of Love.

A Campaign to Revive, Renew, and Reignite

Our goal is to raise $150,000 to:
 ✝️ Revive the Church’s labor ministry
 ✝️ Renew our God-given vocation to work
 ✝️ Reignite Catholic solidarity among all workers

This campaign is not just about funding programs—it’s about ensuring that the Church continues to stand with workers, both in moments of struggle and in building a more just future.

Throughout the month of September following Labor Day, we give special thanks for the gift of work—and for every worker whose labor feeds our families, builds our schools, and sustains our communities.

👉 Will you join us in this labor of love? Your prayers, your passion, and your donation today will help us serve workers like Alex and defend the dignity of all who labor.

Make a Gift Today

Together, we can revive the Church’s prophetic voice on labor and ensure that no worker is forgotten.

Homily for Labor Day Mass – Bishop Evelio Menjivar

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Genesis 2:4b-9; Matthew 25:14-30
Monday, September 1, 2025

Brothers and sisters,

First, I would like to thank the Catholic Labor Network and Fr. Sinclair Oubre for organizing this Mass, in which we come together to pray for and honor the dignity of work, the sacred vocation of labor, and the many sacrifices of every worker. I am also grateful to Fr. Gladstone Stevens, P.S.S., rector of the Theological College, for welcoming us and opening this house of formation so that we may celebrate this Mass today.

I am grateful and humbled by the invitation to celebrate and preach at this Mass, even though I am not an expert on this subject. My first real exposure to labor issues and to the labor movement came in 2012, when I attended a training organized by Fr. Clete Kiley in Chicago. Since then, I have supported several worker-organizing initiatives—meeting with workers, praying with them, and encouraging them to persevere in their efforts. For many Hispanic Catholics in particular, knowing that the Church stands with them is profoundly important, since at times they are uncertain whether their organizing efforts are in conflict with the Church’s teaching. They are always happy when they learn that what they are doing is good and desirable by God. 

Our readings, taken from Genesis and the Gospel of Matthew, remind us that labor is not merely about survival or productivity. It is not simply a way to earn money, or a form of punishment. Work is participation in God’s creative action and a stewardship of the gifts He has entrusted to us.

In Genesis, we hear that after God formed (men) that is human beings, God placed them in the garden “to till it and to keep it.” Work, therefore, is not punishment but a vocation. By working, by using God’s given talents, we are co-creators with God, entrusted with cultivating the earth, caring for creation, and contributing to the common good. 

The garden, the land, is not ours to exploit; it is entrusted to us to protect and cultivate for the good of all.  When labor is reduced to a commodity, when workers are treated as merchandise, God’s plan is distorted, and work becomes oppressive.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the talents. Some interpret this parable narrowly as a celebration of profit: “Show me the money,” as the master demands. But its deeper truth is about stewardship and responsibility. Each servant is entrusted with resources not for selfish gain but for the good of the household.

The question is whether we use our gifts, our collective voice boldly to advance justice and dignity, or whether, out of fear, apathy, or selfishness, we bury them in the ground, remain silence allowing systems of injustice and exploitation to go unchallenged.

The Catholic Church has long defended the dignity of workers. Over 130 years ago, Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum, the foundational encyclical on workers’ rights. He taught that labor is not a mere economic transaction but a matter of justice. Workers are not tools or machines that produce things and that can be replaced by other more efficient machines; they are human beings created in God’s image. Pope Leo XIII insisted on the rights to fair wages, rest, safe conditions, and the freedom to form unions. 

It is refreshing and promising to know that Pope Leo XIV took his name after the apostle of labor. It is our hope that he will put workers right as one of his priorities especially as we face new pressing challenges: workers being displaced by artificial intelligence and robots, families struggling with precarious jobs, and increasing inequalities that degrade human dignity.

Our beloved Pope Francis, in Fratelli Tutti, continued Pope Leo XIII vision: “Work is a profound expression of our dignity. It is a path to growth, human development, and personal fulfillment.” He reminds us that solidarity must always come before profit. An economy that discards workers, especially migrants, the poor, women, and the vulnerable, is an economy that kills and betrays God’s plan for humanity. (FT 162)

This teaching is urgent in our time. Many immigrant workers, our brothers and sisters, continue to suffer grave violations of their dignity. They harvest our food, clean our buildings, care for the elderly, build our homes, and prepare and serve our meals. Yet too often they remain invisible, exploited, underpaid, and fearful. Many live under constant threat of deportation.

Increasingly, they are detained and treated as criminals. But Christ himself identifies with them: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35). When we fail to protect immigrant workers, we fail to recognize the face of Christ in them.

On this Labor Day, we as a faith community must recommit ourselves to defending the dignity of every worker, union and non-union, citizen and immigrant. Justice in the workplace and in our communities is not optional; it is a demand of faith and a matter of justice.

We are called to be like the faithful servants in today’s Gospel: using our talents courageously to build communities where workers are respected, families are secure and united, and labor is honored as a participation in God’s creative love.  

Brothers and sisters, as we celebrate this Eucharist on Labor Day, let us bring to the altar together with the bread and wine, fruits of our labor, the struggles, fears, hopes, and sacrifices of all workers and every person. May the God who formed us from the dust, who gave us a common destiny, and who entrusted us with talents and opportunities, grant us the courage to work for justice, to defend the dignity of every worker, and to recognize in each person we come across the image of God.

Amen.

Poverty Is Not Just About Money

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Poverty Is More Than Lack of Money by Bill Droel

Unconditional cash assistance to the poor may not do any good. That is a conclusion from a rigorous study, Baby’s First Years (www.babysfirstyears.com).

An experiment, supervised by eight researchers, gave $333 per month for 48 months to 1,000 needy families from the Twin Cities, Omaha, New Orleans and New York City. A control group received $20 per month. Results were additionally compared with the population at large. (No government money was involved.)

The experiment yielded no evident improvement in children’s language skills or their cognitive development. Neither the child’s health nor social and emotional behavior was any better than in families lacking the subsidy. The parents receiving the $333 experienced no reduction in stress. Most of these parents were single mothers. Most were Black, Mexican-American or recent immigrants.

The researchers were disappointed in the lack of improvement because they had read positive accounts about the federal cash subsidies given during the worst of Covid-19.

Contrary to some interpretations, it is important to point out what the study does not show:

  • There is no evidence whatsoever in this study nor in many others that Medicaid, SNAP and other federal programs are worthless.
  • There is no evidence in this study that the participants were lazy or that they spent the cash foolishly.
  • There is no evidence in this study that a work requirement would improve family life.

Critics do raise reasonable questions about the study:

  • Might inflation and higher rents make its 2025 outcome less encouraging than the reported results of the earlier Covid-19 subsidies?
  • Might the sample size have been too small, or the duration of the benefits too short, or might measurement of the children look better as those children grow older?

Columnist David Brooks (N.Y. Times, 8/3/25) refers to the First Years study to conclude that “if a child’s social order is broken, federal money will not help.” To properly flourish, he continues, “all humans need to grow up in a secure container, within which they can craft their lives. The social order consists of a stable family, a safe and coherent neighborhood, a vibrant congregational and civic life, a reliable body of laws, a set of shared values that neighbors can use to build healthy communities and a conviction that there exists moral truth.”  Instead, looking at our society we “see families splinter or never form, neighborhood life decay, churches go empty, friends die of addictions, downtowns become vacant, a national elite grow socially and morally detached.”

How to combat poverty? We must refute our culture’s presumption that all problems are caused by an individual’s defect. It is equally erroneous to assume that most individuals have the capacity to improve if they simply so choose. “To understand the cause of poverty we must look beyond the poor,” writes Matthew Desmond in Poverty, By America (Penguin Random, 2023).

The most significant factor for a child to have a “secure container” is a two-parent household. It can be any configuration—two married parents, either different gender or the same gender, likewise two stable unmarried parents or foster parents or grandparents. But a simplistic conclusion about single parenthood is wrong. If, for example, everyone was to get married, poverty would not disappear. Single parenthood is not in itself “a major cause of poverty in America,” as Desmond puts it. Marriage alone does not create the orderliness that children need. Marriage is a big positive for families in the context of other securities. When the poor have real economic opportunity and other buffers, “marriage typically follows,” Desmond concludes.

The other significant factor for a child’s security and growth is parental involvement in their education, no matter in this case if that parent is single or in a stable relationship. Thus, society’s job is to allow parents the wherewithal to supervise homework and to meaningfully interact with teachers. Society withers when economic inequality with its large sector of precarious employment makes a healthy home life too difficult. Our economy and culture must thus be reformed in ways that permit parents to network with one another through school sports or student clubs, through relational congregations, through effective community organizations, through bona fide unions and the like.

Droel is editor at National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).