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From my pastoral experience and studies, the actual marginalized union members are the non-woke dissenters who want decent wages and benefits but are uncomfortable with the injustices and divisiveness created by identity politics. Sixty years ago, high school and college-age students took low-wage jobs at fast-food chains and restaurants as part-time or summer work. Today’s mature workers, often low-income women, have made these and similar jobs full-time, and the labor movement has spearheaded corporate campaigns to support them. There remains a market limit to the pay and benefits of these workers because of the price of caregiving, cleaning, and eating out. Every person has a right to human dignity, but, to some degree, you will never see a world without the haves and have-nots. Such causes are a question of both dollars and cents (material well-being) and spiritual truth. This short commentary underscores the importance of promoting the Catholic understanding of marriage and the family in today’s U.S. labor movement. I use my studies and experience to highlight the importance of the family, describe labor’s contributions and challenges to the family, and criticize the postmodern rejection of norms and boundaries, which reject the family. The essay concludes with a fervorino to develop our character through the spiritual life. It requires a knowledge of the Catholic virtues and a focus on our memory, understanding, and will as sons and daughters of God. Workers without more marketable skills continue to fill low-paying jobs for their families, particularly their children, in the hope of a brighter future. However, the rising cost of higher education, unmarketable degrees, and inevitable technological advances have become severe and urgent challenges for future generations. Our collective responsibility is to understand and address these issues with good discernment. Although entry-level, low-income jobs once provided work experience for the young, they are not long-term sources of economic well-being. Work that previously required human skills is threatened in every field. For instance, artificial intelligence will inevitably expand from today’s routine boilerplate legal tasks to the more demanding logical thinking and argumentation of the legal profession. A college degree alone does not ensure a significant return on investment in today’s world. On the one hand, political leaders have made forgiving student debt a campaign platform. On the other, academics and college administrators have gained immense social, political, and financial capital from the public largesse, a part of our collective national debt. Buyers (students and taxpayers) beware. Rising expectations, a poorly discerned college education, and a rapidly changing economy will lead to more significant individual challenges and social pressure. However, well-formed, faithful men and women of character will continue to find inner peace no matter their successes or disappointments on this temporal pilgrimage. Higher education, the entertainment industry/media, and a significant portion of organized labor have veered to the cultural left for years. Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the most successful at raising labor’s banner, has fought for low-income wage earners in corporate campaigns and political lobbying. However, the individualism found in the political identity causes inside and outside of the labor movement has left the social fabric of family, work, and faith threadbare. This has reinforced society’s individualism and malaise, which leads to isolation or, at worst, violence and should be a concern for everyone. Labor leaders, educators, and celebrities have mistakenly told us that we have no right to enforce boundaries or limits to behavior. “Don’t offend.” “Respect everyone’s personal decisions.” No one can criticize others’ personal choices. Then, rhetorically speaking, why not throw out the Ten Commandments? There are no sins. While organizing workers to meet basic material needs is essential for the labor movement and all people of goodwill, the culture’s spiritual tank has nearly reached empty. Jesus’s ministry pointed to the spiritual life as primary; he taught and lived a personal and communal relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. His life, teaching, and resurrection have shaped and are the Christian life. Manifesting the presence of the Holy Trinity, he fed the hungry and cured the sick, gaining disciples by his example and teaching. A frequent protest chant at labor and social justice marches is “No Justice, No Peace.” In Catholic teaching, God is charity (love) and truth (justice); justice is a moral virtue, and peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. They are not a call to break windows, spray paint graffiti, storm buildings, or menacingly threaten the peace of others, as sometimes happens in aggressive postmodern social protests. The nonviolent protests of Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr., resulted in significant and lasting change. To their credit, organizers in the corporate campaigns of today’s labor movement recognize the importance of leveraging off of social tension and conflict and following peaceful, nonviolent protest methods. Catholic boundaries and Fiducia Supplicans Without any sociological data, my experience is that many low-income immigrant workers come from traditional cultures and families and often hold conservative, traditional social values. But U.S. social activists within and outside the Church frequently criticize and reject Catholic beliefs held by the same immigrants. As an example, various Catholic African Bishops Conferences and the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), representing Catholics across the continent, reminded their faithful that Fiducia Supplicans had not changed Catholic teaching about marriage, blessings, or sin. African priests and deacons cannot, nor can any other priest or deacon, bless homosexuals as married couples, given Fiducia Supplicans and the clarity of Church teaching. Moreover, Pope Francis has said that any such blessings of people in irregular marriages or same-sex relationships are not liturgical blessings. Again, bishops, priests, and deacons cannot bless same-sex relationships or irregular marriages as a sign of Church acceptance of the relationship or any sin. A blessing is a sign that people want God’s help. The priest is to believe and teach what the Church teaches; the hope is that those blessed will follow Jesus Christ and Catholic teaching. Like any faithful Catholic, the priest is to fulfill his role, which St. Ignatius of Loyola calls “thinking with the Church”

Just as Mary points to her Son as the way—”Do what he says”—Joseph’s commitment and dedication point to Jesus as the ultimate, true guide for all of us. The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker strikes a chord that reverberates through the body and soul of every reflective Catholic boy or man. Without denying the contributions women have made in every era, Catholic men sitting in parish pews across the world invariably cast their gaze on the statue of St. Joseph because it communicates meaning and purpose. St. Joseph’s gifts and vocation The spouse of Mary and designated temporal father of Jesus connects our work-life efforts to the transcendent. Following Joseph’s lead, his son divinized our work efforts in the home, on the job, for ourselves and others. Joseph’s sturdy, quiet image projects the authority of a father and the gentleness of a husband who wants what is true, beautiful, and good for his loved ones. Reflective faithful single men, husbands, and fathers hope to emulate Joseph’s love for Jesus and Mary within their own families. Just as Mary points to her Son as the way—”Do what he says”—Joseph’s commitment and dedication point to Jesus as the ultimate, true guide for all of us. As the Gospels of Matthew and Luke attest, both Joseph and Mary traced their lineage to the patriarchs who lead the Israelites throughout their history, in good times and bad. Chosen by the Father and with the work of the Holy Spirit, Mary and Joseph became the earthly guardians and teachers of the Son. Many statues depict St. Joseph holding a wooden staff or a long-stemmed lily that both represents a staff and a sign of Joseph’s purity. The blossoming lily/staff alludes to the blossoming staff of Aaron which signified God’s choice of the men of the tribe of Levi to serve as the chosen people’s priests (Num 17). Recall Moses’s encounter with the burning bush (Ex 3-4). God told Moses to throw his staff to the ground. It became a serpent, but when God told Moses to pick it up by its tail it became his staff again. The Scripture later calls it the “staff of God.” Moses uses it to part the Red Sea (Ex 14). At Rephidim, Moses holds it up with the help of Aaron and Hur to defeat the Amalekites (Ex 17). He also uses it to strike a rock for the Israelites to drink water at Massah and Meribah (Ex 17). David only had his staff, a sling, and five rocks when he slew Goliath (1 Sam 17). The Ark of the Covenant held a gold jar of manna, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and Aaron’s staff that bore buds and almonds (Heb 9:4). The image of Joseph and his staff reminds us of our salvation history. Given our faith, the staff symbolizes the truth of God’s protection, guidance, and loving authority as opposed to our human frailty, waywardness, and self-indulgence. In other depictions, St. Joseph adores the baby Jesus at the Nativity, holds the child Jesus in his arms, or works with the young Jesus at his side. St. Joseph’s quiet, steady, and loving presence offers every Catholic a source of inspiration. The denial of the transcendent, the importance of St. Joseph In the late 19th century, May 1 became a day for marches, demonstrations, speeches, and political efforts to rally workers and their families across the globe, especially with the demand for an 8-hour workday. The impetus for the May 1 date came in the wake of the 1886 Hay Market Affair in Chicago, where policemen and demonstrators died from a bombing and an exchange of gunfire. Eight alleged perpetrators were found guilty of the bombing, four were executed, but others were ultimately pardoned. International socialist groups and labor unionists marked May 1 as a day for annual labor demonstrations and it remains a day to remember the needs and rights of workers across the globe. The Church, however, had long recognized that Marxian materialism and determinism rejected God and, therefore, denied the transcendent character of faith-filled work and home life. In 1955, Pope Pius XII established May 1 as the feast of St. Joseph the Worker to remind Catholics and others that Jesus benefited from his parents’ efforts and toil, and his life sanctified work for all of us. Our spiritual nature and our capacity for self-transcendence make work meaningful and bearable. The Church, moreover, teaches that every human being has equal dignity, while affirming the obvious fact that we are not all equal. Postmodernist activists and their enablers want the world to live by their “nonbinary” mantra, which is another attempt to stifle our spiritual nature and to live solely for immediate material ends. The Scriptural accounts of Joseph and Mary continue to present and raise up their God-given gifts and vocations. By loving the Father, each other, and the Son, their example continues to manifest the sacred and spiritual to us. The postmodern challenge to St. Joseph Many postmodernists mistakenly want us to believe that women and men are biologically and physiologically the same (nonbinary), and therefore promote one’s freedom and will to “transition” from one sex to another. Thus, belying the obvious. Their embracing of “transitioning” requires their recognition and acceptance of the two sexes. While we are made of the same flesh and bone, faith and reason point out the complementarity of men and women, as well as this complementarity’s importance for procreation and self-preservation. The iconic image of the Holy Family is eternal. To live it is to affirm one’s gifts and vocation by serving others, that is, to transcend oneself for the good of others. To be open to unconditional truth, love, goodness, beauty, and being, is to be a loving person. If Catholics struggle to embrace the ethos of the Holy Family, then they need to continue to reflect and pray to the God who created them and loves them. With perseverance, patience, and trust in Providence, as

Labor activism is meaningless without the connection to the sacred and our God-given nature and purpose. Labor Day 2022 is upon us, and in the past, labor priests like Fathers Peter Yorke, John Ryan, Charles Own Rice, Andy Boss, SJ, Phillip Carey, SJ, John Corridan, SJ, Raymond McGowan, George Higgins, Jack Egan, and others regularly shared about the achievements and needs of workers and the importance of the United States labor movement. The Washington, D.C.-based Catholic Labor Network numbers hundreds of priests supporting workers’ rights across the country today. One hopes that every priest supports workers’ rights and duties. The promotion of good work is an ongoing cause of Catholic religious and laity, reaching back to Jesus’ sanctification of work itself, showing its intrinsic meaning and importance to life in the Father’s creation. Work also provides the extrinsic rewards of income and benefits. Jobs, for the great majority of Americans, are the necessary means to protect the vital cell of society, the family. Self-preservation and sustenance are natural desires hard-wired into humanity. Employment plays a pivotal role in fulfilling those desires. The role and roots of Labor Day What is the role of Labor Day today, in a time of stark political division, street vitriol, and apparent collective world-weariness? All Americans possess varying degrees of observation and self-awareness. They use these to analyze the present moment, what it offers and what it does not. Armed with this knowledge, they choose their best course of action in response. Our natural ability to observe, judge, and act is switched on wherever we are, whether at a Labor Day picnic, around the family’s kitchen table, or at the celebration of the Mass. We voluntarily retreat from the world, wounding not just ourselves, but society as a whole, when we pull down the shades, sit in the dark, and do nothing. In 1894, President Glover Cleveland designated the first Monday in September as a federal holiday in response to years of labor turmoil and a work stoppage that had, in his opinion, threatened national interests. George Pullman of the Pullman Palace Car Company, Illinois, had cut wages without cutting rent for company-owned housing, and his employees/renters went on strike. The strike shut down railways in the Midwest through the support of the American Railroad Union and its president Eugene Debs. Debs, a decent human being by many accounts, later became the Socialist Party of America’s five-time candidate for president and was a distant also-ran five times. Senator Bernie Sanders frequently referenced Debs during his most recent campaign for president. Debs and his supporters were activists at the apex of rapid industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Railroads, roads, bridges, telegraphs, and telephones had shrunk the nation. The meaning and sustainability of the family farm became progressively endangered. Chicago’s rail and stockyards, the coastal and Great Lakes ports, and the mines of the west became hubs for organizing. Our predecessors analyzed their reality in the context of that moment in U.S. history and then responded. The unknown is how many considered the possible harmful consequences to future generations. The efforts and dedication of union members and their supporters achieved a more equitable sharing of economic success. Even the most anti-union thinker recognizes that labor unions influenced the development of the country by gaining just wages, benefits, and working conditions for multiple generations of workers. On the downside, union “bosses” controlled New York Harbor longshoremen’s work and robbed Teamsters’ pension plans. Some union leaders became too powerful, holding authority long after they had pivoted from protecting their members to empowering, enriching, and elevating themselves. Federal, state, and local governments passed legislation to protect union members. Power can corrupt. The link between work and family remained clear and always will. A good, meaningful job with a decent wage was everyone’s desire in organized labor’s heyday, but a critical analysis of the period also recalls injustices: racial discrimination, unfair treatment of women, corrupted corporations and unions, and union-busting by employers (including religious employers). Sin and ignorance were a part of the culture, but with continued observation, reflective judgment, and a committed will to attain the true, the good, and the beautiful, faith-filled Catholics followed Jesus in their temporal pilgrimage. Today immigrants, including many Catholics, come to the U.S. looking for a home, the majority starting in low-wage occupations like housekeeping, food services, and accommodations. Like former generations, they are aware that people of every race, creed, and country of origin have occasions of sin and ignorance. Reflective and often battle-worn from the corruption and injustices they escaped and the rigors of that escape, they are not naïve, grasping the reality of sin and ignorance present everywhere, even in sanctuary cultures. Catholic social teaching reminds non-citizens and citizens of all nations that they have rights and an inherent responsibility to work for the common good. That responsibility includes respect for the law. Our common humanity is to be recognized, affirmed, and supported with the Golden Rule and Christian neighbor love. Doing for others who cannot help themselves was the sacrifice that Our Lord made for us. Work will always remain essential to finding a better home. This Labor Day reflection focuses on organized labor and its continued role in a free country where freedoms are under attack. The deep and growing disconnect An individual worker can seldom muster the power to improve wages, benefits, or working conditions. Collective action for the common good is necessary and protected as foundational freedom. Despite the weakness of U.S. labor laws, recent successful organizing drives at Amazon, Starbucks, Google, and Apple illustrate that workers still have the freedom and power to leverage employers (global giants) into meeting with their chosen representatives. Winning a representation election, however, does not always lead to a first contract and long-term collective bargaining. Moreover, with state and federal laws protecting employees, class action suits are a viable option for employees without union representation. The number of union workers in the U.S. has continued to