Catholic Teaching Says Support Unions, Catholic Colleges are Fighting Them

[Act_of_Reparation]

Catholic Teaching Says Support Unions, Catholic Colleges are Fighting Them

Joseph Fahey cherishes the Catholic Church's teachings on worker rights. "It's really beautiful teaching -- rock-bottom core, Matthew 25 stuff," says Fahey, a Catholic theologian. "A lot of Catholics would tell you that's why they're Catholic."

So Fahey took it as an insult to his faith when the Catholic school where he's taught for 50 years, Manhattan College, tried to prevent adjunct professors from unionizing. He was particularly galled because part-time adjuncts are among "the poorest and weakest people on campus," he says. In September, he dashed off a public letter on the matter, saying the school's trustees should be ashamed of themselves.

"This falls into the context of grave sin. This is serious stuff," Fahey, 76, told The Huffington Post. "They're violating their own mission statement that says the school is supposed to stand up for social justice. If they violate this [teaching], they may as well not call themselves a Catholic school."

Manhattan is one of a gaggle of Catholic colleges now holding up their spiritual mission as a shield against collective bargaining. At least four other schools -- Seattle University; Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh; Saint Xavier University, in Chicago; and Loyola University Chicago -- have recently sought religious exemptions from labor law that would scuttle faculty organizing campaigns.

But soup kitchens, or something.

[Cartoonist]

1. Cherry soup

You would think everyone knows by now that religious leaders pick and choose which parts of the Bible to further their BS.

[trotsky]

2. They should just go to a different college.

[Lordquinton]

3. OH SNAP!

[rug]

4. How refreshing to see you promote Catholic teaching.

In a statement to HuffPost, Manhattan said its adjuncts play an "indispensable role" at the school, but it must be able to manage its relationship with them "free of (government) oversight."

"We believe that it would be irresponsible not to question vigorously the right of the government to insert itself into decisions that directly affect the heart and soul of our institution, not because of opposition to employees or antipathy to the rights of working people," the college said.

Critics of that stance quickly point to Rerum Novarum, the encyclical on capital and labor issued by Pope Leo XIII. In this 1891 open letter to the Catholic bishops, the pope offered a few prescriptions for alleviating the "misery and wretchedness" he saw among the working classes of the Gilded Age. Near the top of his list was the right to free association with groups that can close the gap between rich and poor. "The most important of all are workingmen's unions," the pope wrote.

Just six years ago, in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that his predecessor's appeal for unionism was even more relevant in an age of globalization. Unions, the pope said, were becoming too weak to effectively advocate for the working class. Calls to promote collective bargaining, Benedict urged, "must therefore be honored today even more than in the past."

I'm sure you've disappointed some.

As an aside, the position of Manhattan College, which produced Rudy Giuliani, is unsurprising.

[Cartoonist]

5. Just the opposite

He supported the alleged teaching of Jesus. He spat at modern Catholic teaching.

I see you cherry pick which popes to quote in order to further your crusade.

[rug]

6. If yo read the article he posted, you'll see the quotes come from there.

Rather than "cherry picling", you now have the branches, trunk and roots of the tree.