Work Is for Man, Not Man for Work

John Paul's third encyclical exalts the dignity of toil

Again and again during the three years of his reign, Pope John Paul II has reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's message that man has an intrinsic worth and dignity, and any system that degrades that worth or undermines that dignity is wrong. In his many speeches and in his first two encyclicals, he has expressed his concern for the welfare of the individual, criticized the dehumanizing aspects of modern life and committed the church to the cause of social justice.

Last week, in his third encyclical, or formal policy-setting letter to the Roman Catholic Church, John Paul underlined those concerns, this time through the theme of human work. He had intended to issue the 24,000-word document, titled Laborem Exercens (On Working), last spring in connection with the 90th anniversary of Pope Leo Kill's encyclical Rerum Novarum, the first Catholic document devoted to social questions. Its release, however, had to await his recovery from the bullet wounds he suffered last May. "It is only after my stay in hospital," he explains at the end of the document, "that I have been able to revise it definitively."

In restating the church's teaching on human work, John Paul repeatedly cites God's command to man in Genesis to "subdue the earth." The Pope interprets this to mean that man is the "subject of labor" and that "work is 'for man,' and never man 'for work.' " He asserts the priority of labor over capital and, while restating the church's belief in the right to private property, argues that this right is not absolute but "subordinate to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone."

He condemns laissez-faire capitalism because it reduces man to an instrument of production, but praises "worker solidarity." The socialization of some means of production cannot be ruled out, he says, but converting them into state property may be unsatisfactory because socialism often produces "excessive bureaucratic centralization," which exploits the worker as if he were "just a cog in a huge machine." John Paul feels that adaptations of property rights, including "joint ownership of the means of work, or sharing by workers in the management and/or profits of businesses," may be the most desirable course.

Labor unions receive sympathetic treatment in the encyclical. John Paul believes unions are an "indispensable element" for defending the rights of working people. He endorses strikes but does warn that they are an extreme means and "must not be abused, especially for political purposes." Indeed, unions should not "play politics." This is a message that may fall on deaf ears in many Western European and Third World nations, where unions have long been politicized.

Although the encyclical contains no reference to any particular union, it is difficult to avoid connecting his declarations with Solidarity, the embattled labor federation in the Pope's native Poland: his support is implicit in the document's many references to "solidarity."

Finally, in discussing the rights of workers, including fair wages and medical benefits, John Paul comes to what for the church has proved a vexing question: the role of women. He emphasizes that women have the right to "fulfill their tasks in accordance with their own nature, without being discriminated against and without being excluded from jobs for which they are capable." But he declares that the "true advancement for women requires that labor should be structured [so that] women do not have to pay for their advancement by abandoning what is specific to them," their "irreplaceable role" as mothers.

No doubt some Western feminists will deplore John Paul's somewhat retrograde analysis of women's work. In many countries, especially in Eastern Europe, women are forced to work in order to achieve a decent living standard for their families, and birth rates have plummeted. But the fact is that the encyclical announces general principles and ethical ideals, not strategies, and is addressed to working people in every part of the globe. Individuals are thus left free to draw from it the spiritual and social guidance they most need.

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