What the Left Ignores About Catholic Teaching on Unions

Yesterday i put up a post on the retirement of Cardinal Renato Martino (Pro-Life Hero Retires). In that post I talked about the much ignored by the social justice gang Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church & even more ignored parts of it that didn't line up with their agenda. I decided to follow up with a couple of concrete examples on what the Catholic Church says about Unions.

Everyone knows that the Catholic Church teaches people have the right to form unions at the workplace. & I have no problem witn that. What I do have problems with is when the leadership of those unions (as well as the rank & file) does things that goes against Catholic teachings. Here are parts of paragraphs 306 & 307 that you never here about. (Emphasis mine)

306 The Church's social doctrine teaches that relations within the world of work must be marked by cooperation: hatred and attempts to eliminate the other are completely unacceptable. This is also the case because in every social system both “labour” and “capital” represent indispensable components of the process of production. Instead of cooperation, the unions usually make demands & refuse to cooperate. & when they do cooperate it is only because they are forced to. & note the fact the church calls "capital" indespensable.

In light of this understanding, the Church's social doctrine “does not hold that unions are no more than a reflection of the ‘class' structure of society and that they are a mouthpiece for a class struggle which inevitably governs social life” In other words, the Marxist, socialist class warfare that is so much a par of the union rhetoric (as well as the whole liberal left) is wrong.

Being first of all instruments of solidarity and justice, unions may not misuse the tools of contention; because of what they are called to do, they must overcome the temptation of believing that all workers should be union-members, Here in Iowa we have a "Right to Work" law that the unions have tried to overturn for decades. they hate that law because it means that people can't be forced to join a union. They want to force everyone that works at a place with unions to join whether the person wants to or not. & according to Church teaching, that is a no-no. Current Iowa law is much more in line with Catholic teaching.

The same applies to the attempts to eliminate the private ballot to vote for unionizing. Without the private ballot people would feel pressure to vote for a union or face retaliation that the shouldn't be subjected to. Prudent judgement tells me that the private ballot is more in line wth Catholic doctrine.

& finally this gem from paragraph 307:

307 Unions do not, however, have the character of “political parties” struggling for power, and they should not be forced to submit to the decisions of political parties nor be too closely linked to them. “In such a situation they easily lose contact with their specific role, which is to secure the just rights of workers within the framework of the common good of the whole of society; instead they become an instrument used for other purposes”. In DBQ union & Democratic party are synonomous. They are literally in bed with each other. & that is true across the USA as well. When the Democratic party says "jump" the unions say "How high?" The unions like the SEIU are the strongarm of the Democratic party. Clearly this is in total opposition to Catholic teaching.

Catholic doctrine is neither left or right, libertarian or moderate, liberal or conservative politically. But it is liberal & conservative in the classic sense of those words. Something that is tiotally different than what they mean today. The Catholic Church conserves authentic doctrine & liberally applies it. I will admit that there are times when I am uncomfortable with what I read. There are 2 reasons. Sometimes it is because of how the left has twisted the words to fit their agenda (the Pope's commenst on the environment are a recent example). The other reason is because they challenge me to chaange my thinking to be more in line with the mind of God.

When this Compendium 1st came out a few years ago you didn't hear very much about it. It was even less welcome by the left than the Catechism was in the 90s. & we know why the Catechism was unwelcome. The left didn't want it because it would undermine their attempts to build a "Spirit of Vatican II" Church that undermined orthodox Catholic teaching. The Catechism provided a standard they didn't want to be measured against. They knew the Catechism would shine light on where they were wrong. & the Compendium is doing the same thing with their "social justice" gospel.

I got my copy of the Compendium to specifically use as a tool to promote authentic Catholic teaching because I was sick of how the "social justice" gang was twisting it. & as you can see, that is exactly what it does. & why I suspect that it will remain a mostly ignored gem.