Very good article here, on the Catholic News Agency website, about Fr Sinclair Oubre and his call to remember Catholic social teaching on Labour Day, which he describes as a Catholic holiday. He also uses the occasion to express worry about some of the hyper-individualist elements in American culture which are contributing to erosions of labour rights, and to encourage careful reading, reflection and action on Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. I agree wholeheartedly with the material thrust Fr Oubre’s stance; there’s never a bad occasion to read Rerum Novarum, and this is speaking not just as an Anglo-Catholic but also as a student of public policy. But Labour Day is an especially good occasion for it.
EDIT: Also, remember:
Hi Matthew,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Did you notice the comments on the Fr. Oubre article? Pretty depressing, although I guess one should keep in mind that Internet Catholicism is probably more right-wing than the general population of Catholics out there in the "real world."
Hi John!
ReplyDeleteYeah... I try not to let the comments bother me too much. I don't even necessarily think it's all of Internet Catholicism; I've met Canadian Catholics online whose first-option voting preference is NDP and who think the only thing more ghastly than BQ is what the Conservative Party has turned into. German Catholics likewise seem to have their heads mostly screwed on straight...
'Course, in Europe you get sedevacantists who deny the Holocaust, rather than sedevacantists who think slavery was a good thing. Not much of an improvement, I daresay.