Direct from the labor front Labor Day and Blessed John Paul II

CEBU, Philippines -  The scheduled beatification tomorrow, Labor Day, of the much beloved and revered Pope John Paul II highlights the many concrete manifestations of his pro-labor, pro-social justice and pro workers’ rights advocacies, which indeed defined his more than 27 years of papacy. In all his writings, sermons, speeches before international bodies, in his books and encyclicals, he never failed to speak for the dignity of labor, the primacy of labor over capital, the human rights of workers, even as he denounced all forms of human injustice, all means of exploitation of labor and of oppression of workers.

 It is most appropriate therefore, that JP II be beatified on Labor Day. He is emerging to be the next saint for the modern day workers. Filipino workers, all over the world, especially the migrant workers, the child laborers, the women workers and the physically challenged or handicapped workers, those who are in jails for fighting against capital, and the workers whose just wages are unlawfully denied, those whose unions are busted, those whose rights to free speech are being impaired, and whose concerted actions are being subjected to coercions of all forms, look up to Blessed JP II for aid in their struggles for salvation. For unlike many Church leaders today who seem to be captives of the capitalists, JP II never allowed himself nor the Church he led to become collaborators against the fundamental freedoms of the working class.

 In his first major social encyclical, LABOREM EXERCENS, written in 1981, JP II laid down two basic principles that should guide all decisions, actions and contracts involving labor, capital and the State. First, he stressed that WORK should be for the HUMAN PERSON and not the human person to be for work. Second, John Paul II emphasized that CAPITAL should be a means to liberate and not to exploit, much less to oppress labor. He, like Pope Leo XIII, more than a century ago, condemned unrestrained capitalism, where the greedy capitalists seek only to aggrandize and enrich themselves at the expense of, and to the great prejudice to, the working masses. While denouncing Capitalism, John Paul II also condemned Socialism, where the oppressor and exploiter is no less than the State itself.

 JP II wrote SOLICITUDO REI SOCIALIS in 1987, which was a biting and incisive critique against Imperialism. The Pope denounced the imperialist powers, whether from the left or from the right, for becoming the main sources of large-scale poverty, social injustice and human sufferings. JP II made reference to his predecessor, JOHN XXIII, whose MATER ET MAGISTRA, circa 1960, was a loud denunciation of the injustices brought about by the imperialist and capitalist powers. And also of PAUL VI, whose POPULORUM PROGRESIO, circa 1967, was also a bold stand taken by the Church against the oppressive instruments of both Capital and the State. JP II also invoked the famous VATICAN II Social Manifesto, the GAUDIUM ET SPES, which integrated all social encyclicals that reflected the philosophy and thinking of the Second Vatican Council. Finally, in CENTESIMUS ANNUS, written by JP II in 1991, in the centennial commemoration of Pope Leo XIII’s most famous obra maestra, the RERUM NOVARUM, JOHN PAUL II, while noting with joy the fall of communism, continued to condemn Capitalism as an exploitative tool of greed, and of men’s inhumanity to men. 

Today, as we celebrate both Labor Day and the beatification of a Pope who truly loved the workers and the poor, we hope and pray that the Church should speak as eloquently as JP II did against all forms of social injustice. We look forward to continue hearing Cardinals, bishops, priests and the religious who are imbued with JP II’s zeal and advocacy to denounce employers who refuse to pay just wages, who bust unions, and terrorize union leaders, and government officials who collaborate with oppressors, instead of giving the preferential option for the poor. The Church should stand for the people, because the people is the Church.