The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 316: Labor and Social Justice (2025)

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Work is both a gift and a duty. Today, we explore how labor can impact man’s dignity and unite us to Jesus, the carpenter. Fr. Mike emphasizes that work should not be ordered towards economic gain, but rather, it should be ordered toward man’s dignity and the human community. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2426-2436. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity and God's family as we journeyed together toward our heavenly home. This is day out of those 365. This is day 316. We're reading paragraphs 24, 26. to 2436. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes a foundation of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism

of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications because today is day 316. You guys, you're trucking along. I mean, this is incredible. We are less than 50 days to go. And that is remarkable, I think, as long as my math is right. I think that's great. Today we're going to talk about, we're going to continue talking about the Seventh Commandment. And today, yesterday, we talked about social doctrine of the church. Yesterday, we talked about the dignity, integrity of creation. Today, we're looking at economic activity and social justice. And we recognize

that it says in the first paragraph 2426, it says, the development of economic activity and growth and production are meant to provide for the needs of human beings. And so this is what it all comes back to. Human work is a good. No matter what the work is, it is a good because it's human beings, beings made in God's image and likeness, that are doing it. And therefore, there are some laws about when it comes to human work, what is in keeping with the integrity of the worker and what could violate the integrity of the worker? So we're looking at some of those things today as we launch into today. Let's say a prayer. Father in heaven, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we ask for your Holy Spirit to come and guide our thoughts, guide our minds, open our

minds so that we can hear your truth and understand it. God, God, give us a practical understanding of your wisdom and of your revelation. Give us a practical understanding of what it is and how it is that you're calling us to do and how it is you're calling us to live and work and approach our work and approach some of the decisions that we may need to make when it comes to just economic systems. We ask you to please give us a heart like yours, not only a mind like yours, so we can see clearly but a heart like yours so that we can love what you love so that we can hate what you hate oh god help us this day with your holy spirit in jesus name we pray amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen it is day three hundred and sixteen we are

reading paragraph 2426 to 2436 economic activity and social justice the development of economic activity and growth in production are meant to provide for the needs of human beings. Economic life is not meant solely to multiply goods produced and increase profit or power. It is ordered, first of all, to the service of persons, of the whole man, and of the entire human community. Economic activity conducted according to its own proper methods is to be exercised within the limits of the moral order in keeping with social justice so as to correspond to God's plan for man. Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another.

Hence, work is a duty. As Scripture says, if anyone will not work, let him not eat. Work honors the creator's gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, and the one crucified on Calvary, man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work. He shows himself to be a disciple of Christ by carrying the cross daily in the work he is called to accomplish. Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ. In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author, and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work.

Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family and of serving the human community. Everyone has the right of economic initiative. Everyone should make a legitimate use of his talents to contribute to the abundance that will benefit all and to harvest the just fruits of his labor. He should seek to observe regulations issued by legitimate authority for the sake of the common good. Economic life brings into play different interests, often opposed to one another. This explains why the conflicts that characterize it arise. Efforts should be made to reduce these consequences. conflicts by negotiation that respects the rights and duties of each social partner, those responsible

for business enterprises, representatives of wage earners, for example, trade unions, and public authorities when appropriate. The responsibility of the state. Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical, or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence, the principal task of the state is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labors and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly.

Another task of the state is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the state, but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society. Those responsible for business enterprises are responsible to society for the economic and ecological effects of their operations. They have an obligation to consider the good of persons and not only the increase of profits. Profits are necessary, however. They make possible the investments that ensure the future of a business, and they guarantee employment. Access to employment

and to professions must be open to all without unjust discrimination. Men and women, healthy and disabled, natives and immigrants. For its part, society should, according to circumstances, help citizens find work and employment. A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice. In determining fair pay, both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. Remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role on the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good. Agreement between the parties is not sufficient

to justify morally the amount to be received in wages. Recourse to a strike is morally legitimate when it cannot be avoided, or at least when it is necessary to obtain a proportionate benefit. It becomes morally unacceptable when accompanied by violence, or when objectives are included that are not directly linked to working conditions or are contrary to the common good. It is unjust not to pay the Social Security contributions required by legitimate authority. Unemployment almost always wounds its victim's dignity and threatens the equilibrium of his life. Besides the harm done to him personally, it entails many risks for his family. All right, there we are paragraphs 2426, 2436. Let's go all the way back to the beginning because there is so much here.

there is so much. So paragraph 2426 kind of tease up the ball here and highlights the fact that here's the church teaching. That economic life, economic life is not meant solely to multiply goods produced or increased profit or power. So we have to keep in mind that there is a good, there's a role for economic activity. There's a goal for economic life. But that's not meant solely to multiply goods, the goods produced, or increase profit or power. It is ordered first of all to the service of persons of the whole man and of the entire human community. And that might not be our experience, obviously, right? Our experience might be, remember we talked about this when it came to, after the fall,

work has changed. I mean, work is still has dignity. But for many of us, work oftentimes falls into two extremes. One is work is simply drudgery, right? It is fruitless and it is pointless. That's so many people's experience. but here's my work. It is fruitless. It is pointless, meaning that it doesn't do anything. It's fruitless, right? And it's pointless. It doesn't mean anything. And so often people find themselves

in that place where work is mere toil, it is mere drudgery. It's fruitless and it is pointless. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't mean anything. The other extreme is that work is everything. The other extreme is that work is my identity. Like I am this thing. Like if I didn't have this thing, who would I be? And I know a lot of people are part of this community. You retired or maybe never actually had a job that paid you. You worked pretty hard all your life, but it wasn't necessarily a job that paid you. And here we find ourselves talking about work, thinking about work and thinking, okay, how does this apply to my life right now? Well, the great thing about this is works value doesn't come from how much money you make working. Works value doesn't come from whether

or not you get a pay, even get a paycheck at all. So you can be retired, you can be someone who, no, I never really got a paycheck for the work that I did. And still that is human labor. That is still human work. And it is still full of dignity, so important. So keep in mind, we're talking about economic systems. We're talking about labor. We're looking through the lens of the fall. And the lens of the fall is our temptation is again to see work as drudgery or work as my identity. Work either means nothing and does nothing or work is everything, and without it, I am nothing. Prayer of 2427 highlights it says,

human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and call to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Hence work is a duty. It is a gift, it's a duty, right? It's an obligation and it's a duty. St. Paul says, if anyone will not work, let him not eat. And whenever we work, we are honoring God's gifts.

We're honoring the talents God has given us. We're honoring the fact that we're alive and he's whole this in existence. He's all this end of being. So keep in mind, again, when I say work, I'm not saying you get a check for this. There's some money for this. I'm saying any kind of human labor, any kind of human work, even if you were to say, I am stuck at home and I actually can't go outside. I can't mow my lawn.

I can't even clean my house. Maybe I'm actually stuck in bed and I can't get out of bed. That might be the reality of your life. In your labor in this case, what is your labor? But your labor is uniting that suffering to the sufferings of Jesus on the cross. If you can, if you can get out there into the workplace and you are working with your hands, with your mind, or whatever is you're working, you can still unite that part of your life. To the carpenter, right, to Jesus himself, who made a living by the sweat of his brow.

See, all of this is, it gets to be, it's transformed. Every human being, your work has dignity. Every human being, work has value. For Christians, we get to have like a super, a super person. super-powered, supercharged work, where we get to unite, it gets to be redemptive, as it says in paragraph 24-27. So amazing. He says, work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ. Paragraph 24-28 says, in work, the person exercises and fulfills, in part, the potential inscribed in his nature, that work is for man,

not man for work. And that is so, so important that, again, work is for man, not man for work. That means, again, my friends who are not working right now, you still have dignity, you still have worth. And even the smallest of tasks that you can accomplish is so good. I mean, I remember talking to a man who was recently retired and he was just talking about like, okay, I found this in myself. I found myself having to make a to-do list either the night before or the morning of each day. And he said, because I was so used to getting work done that, okay, what do I do any, I would get to the end of the day and I would ask myself the question, what have I done? And so he said, it's really helpful for me. And you know, you might be someone who checklists

bother you so much. I'm not saying you have to do this. But he found it so helpful for him because he realized, I'm still doing things. Yes, I'm retired. Yes, I'm not getting a paycheck for the work I'm doing all throughout the day. But there is still stuff that I'm doing. And there's a sense of accomplishment. There's a sense of meaning that comes along with just human work. and yet at the same time, there is a lot of work that is associated with the economy. That's why paragraph 2429 highlights that everyone has a right to economic initiative, which means that everyone has a right to be able to, and a duty, to make legitimate use of your talents to contribute to the world around you.

Now, the next paragraph highlights the fact that, yes, in this economic life, there can be a lot of partners, a lot of different workers, a lot of different people with a lot of different ideas, and sometimes you find yourselves at cross purposes, right? So this is the danger, that conflicts will. happen. In economic life, conflicts will happen because different interests opposed to one another. So it goes on to say, efforts should be made to reduce these conflicts by negotiation that respects the rights and duties of each social partner. And again, this is key. How do we have negotiation that resolves these conflicts by respecting the right and duties of each social

partner? So those responsible for business enterprises, so the people, you know, moving, the board, the owner, whatever, representatives of wage earners like trade unions and the public authority. Sometimes the government can get involved. And yet, that involvement, paragraph 2431 says it's limited. Here's what the state is responsible for. So if you're going to have economic activity doesn't happen in a vacuum, doesn't happen in a political vacuum or institutional vacuum. But it presupposes sure guarantees of a couple things. Individual freedom and private property, stable currency, and efficient public services. So think of those four things at first. There's some more coming in a second. But just realize. that here is the state. We want to have not just the state, but all of society presupposing and guaranteeing these four things, individual freedom, private property, stable currency, and

efficient public services. So therefore, it says the principal task of the state is to guarantee that security so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labors and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly. Also, another task of the state is overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. So there might be some things like, okay, we need to make a law that would maybe break a monopoly if you thought that that was unjust. However, the last line of paragraph 2431 says, however, the primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the state, but to individuals and to various groups and associations that make up society. And that's helpful. We have this, yeah, we have a state. We have

political, juridical, institutional organizations. And they are meant to be helpful. Absolutely. And yet their help is the help they can offer, and the power they wield is meant to be limited. And I think that's so remarkable. Now, paragraph 2432 highlights that those responsible for business enterprises are responsible to society for the economic and ecological effects of their operations. They have to make sure that profits are not, although profits are the bottom line, the profits are not in the bottom line. You know what I'm saying? That if you're responsible for business enterprises, you're responsible not only to your shareholders. You're not only responsible to, you know, have a low overhead and high profit margin.

We're responsible for. He's responsible to society and the economic and ecological effects of their operations. Business owners can be doing a really good thing. They'd be doing a great service to the community. They have to consider the good of persons and not only the increase of profits. But here's where in paragraph 2432, the church brings great wisdom again. and says yes you have to those who are running businesses and i know people who are listening to this you you started your own business you put all of that all of that effort all of that risk you you put

into into your work you've done you work so hard you spend your whole life on this maybe your whole family's life on this and says that's good that is a good however in the midst of that you have to we have to have an obligation to consider the good of persons and not only the increase of profits at the same time remember this is the wisdom of the church are necessary. However, that's, again, this wisdom. It says they make possible the investments that ensure the future of a business and they guarantee employment because those who are responsible for business enterprises, those who are founders or presidents, those who are running the company. Because they do this well, there are other families, not only their own. There are other

families that have a roof over their head. There's other families that are taken care of. There are other families that are lifted out of poverty, that should be part of the goal. And that's what so much, I know so many business owners that that is their goal. That, I mean, even Ascension, I remember when I first encountered Ascension, and this is not a commercial for them, just was one of those situations where the person, the man who founded Ascension, Matt Pinto, he, he, he, I remember him saying that we, we're employing all of these, all these people that we need to continue to provide a great product in the Ascension materials because there are families, so many families who rely upon us to do that. And so we have to continue not only to bring the

gospel to the world, we have to not only continue to teach people the truth of the Catholic faith, but also I'm responsible to run this company in such a way that these men and women, these families can keep their kids in school, they can keep their home, that they can be fed and just move forward in life. And that's so important. That's why paragraph 2434 says a just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse it or withhold it can be a grave injustice. Recourse to strike is morally legitimate when it can't be avoided or when it's necessary to obtain a proportionate benefit, but there are also limited there. It becomes morally unacceptable when accompanied by violence or when the objectives included are not directly linked to

working conditions are contrary to the common good. We recognize that unemployment, I pray for those looking for honest work virtually every day. It says unemployment almost always wounds its victim's dignity and threatens the equilibrium of his life. Besides the harm done to him personally, it entails many risks for his family. And so we, man, if you find yourself in that position right now where you are unemployed, we find yourself in this position where you're just like longing for honest work, please know that this community is praying for you because that work is good. You are good. And the work that you do has dignity. And so I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.

Thank you.