Keeping minimum wage just:
Is an ongoing responsibility

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

A common message of Catholic social thought and teaching is that those who work for wages must be justly compensated.

This teaching is grounded in our conviction that the value of work is grounded in the dignity of the human beings who do it. Just as every life has value, so too does every worker have dignity. Wages are a critical way by which we recognize that dignity.

But the work we do is not only about the worker. It is also about those who rely on the worker for their daily bread. As Pope John Paul II wrote in his 1981 encyclical letter on work, Laborem Exercens, the right of every person to a job is grounded in the twin responsibility to develop (at a minimum) one's own God given skills to the fullest and to provide for one's own needs and those of one's family.

'Family wage'

Thus Catholic social teaching has long defined a just wage in terms of a "family wage," or that necessary to meet the needs of a family. For nearly 100 years, the church has addressed such compensation in the context of a "family wage" or a wage adequate to allow a worker to meet not only his or her own needs, but also those of family members who rely on him/her as a main wage earner.

That is why state Catholic conferences generally support the idea of raising the minimum wage when lawmakers consider proposals to raise the minimum wage. This was the case on August 28, when the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) submitted written testimony in support of Senate Bill 130.

Not only does SB 130 raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, but it also directs the state Department of Workforce Development to annually adjust the wage to keep pace with changes in the consumer price index. This change is long overdue.

One of the deficiencies in modern social policy is that the minimum wage lags behind the cost of living. Since the 1950s the minimum wage has lost so much ground to inflation that recent increases still leave it well below the buying power it enjoyed 50 years ago.

'Indirect employers'

John Paul II asserted that the responsibility to treat workers justly is not limited to those who hire them. This duty extends to all persons and institutions such as government, financial organizations, and others who influence the structures and conditions in which work is performed. Pope John Paul II referred to these entities as "indirect employers."

In a democracy and consumer-driven economy such as ours, those of us who are voters and consumers can be thought of as "indirect employers" to the extent that our choices govern decisions in the market place.

As another summer vacation season draws to a close, we may wish to think of the minimum wage workers who are employed in the service sector, especially in the retail trade, leisure, and hospitality industries. As we do so, we might just ask ourselves:

What are the service workers who make our leisure activities possible able to buy with the wages they earn?

Are their wages sufficient to pay for their essential needs?

Those seem like valid questions as we ponder the value of our minimum wage workers in these days after Labor Day 2007.

John Huebscher is executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference in Madison.

Couples need truth:
About meaning of marriage

By Archbishop Charles Chaput
ARCHBISHOP OF DENVER

Reprinted with permission from the Denver Catholic Register.

One of my vivid memories as a young priest was watching the United States exit Vietnam after claiming to win at the bargaining table. Less than two years later, Saigon collapsed, and the war ended.

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I knew plenty of serious Catholics who opposed the war. I knew many others who supported it. But no one on either side believed that we left because we had "won."

Americans have a genius for marketing, and one of the things we've learned from experience is that we can often make bad news look better by giving it a different name. The problem stays the same, but at least we feel happier about it - for a while.

Betrothal proposal?

I remembered this as I read a recent article in U.S. Catholic magazine. Since the 1960s, premarital sexual activity has greatly increased. So has the number of couples living together outside marriage. In some dioceses today, as many as 90 percent of the couples who present themselves for marriage preparation already live together and have sexual relations.

But "A betrothal proposal," written by two marriage researchers, argues that a big difference exists between sexually active couples who casually cohabit and "nuptial cohabiters" who intend marriage. The former couples are, say the authors, far more likely to split up than the latter, should they marry.

This makes sense. The intent to marry and the intent to enjoy sex as a kind of recreation are very different motives. Nor is pre-nuptial sex "news" to any confessor. Love and human nature being as they are, engaged couples have always had a difficult time refraining from sexual intimacy.

This doesn't make sexual relations between engaged persons morally right. It merely explains the behavior. It also highlights the need for Catholic couples to have strong support and guidance in waiting until they marry.

Mistaken suggestion

The U.S. Catholic article goes beyond identifying a problem, though. The authors argue that "current pastoral responses to cohabiting couples (are) both uninformed and outdated" and that "Our experience with young (cohabiting) adults leads us to doubt the claim that they are living in sin. It would appear closer to the truth that they are growing, perhaps slowly but nonetheless surely, into grace."

The authors also examine the history of Catholic thought about marriage and suggest "a return to the marital sequence of betrothal (with appropriate ritual to ensure community involvement), sexual intercourse, possible fertility, then ritual wedding to acknowledge and mark the consummation of both valid marriage and sacrament."

I believe in the intelligence and good will of the authors. I also believe that their argument is bafflingly naïve.

If the Church, in her reflection on the Gospel, has always taught that sex outside marriage is morally wrong, then for the Church to now bless "nuptial cohabiters" amounts to colluding in sin.

Ritualizing a sinful behavior, or calling it a nicer name, does not change its substance. The very last thing we need in a society already awash in confused sexuality is a strategy for accommodating it.

Truth needed

The greatest irony of the U.S. Catholic article comes in a comment by the authors that many young adults "cite confusion about Church teaching because Church leaders send mixed messages about sex, contraception, and divorce/annulment."

I very much agree. And one of the sources of that confusion might be Catholic publications, theologians, and researchers who help feed it.

We need more support for marriage in society and the Church, not alternative arrangements. Cohabiting couples deserve the understanding and patience of the Catholic community, but above all they need to hear the Christian truth, persuasively offered, about the nature of marriage, the meaning of their sexuality, and the importance of the family.

We waste words and time when we focus on anything else.

Archbishop Charles Chaput is archbishop of the Archdiocese of Denver, Colo.

Authority of Church:
Truth not determined by popular vote

		A Culture  of Life  Christopher West

Doesn't the "infallibility" of the Church only apply in rare pronouncements of the pope?

The Church exercises the charism of infallibility (the inability to err) in two ways. The extraordinary way is exercised when the pope makes an ex cathedra ("from the chair" of St. Peter) pronouncement. The ordinary way is exercised when the Magisterium agrees on a matter of faith or morals as definitively to be held.

It's a common error to think infallibility only applies to ex cathedra pronouncements, as if these are the only teachings Catholics "have" to believe. That would mean we wouldn't "have" to believe in the Trinity or the Incarnation or a host of other core beliefs that have never been defined by ex cathedra pronouncements. As the Catechism makes clear, "The infallibility of the Magisterium . . . extends to all the elements of doctrine, including moral doctrine, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, expounded, or observed."

Furthermore, even in those cases when the Magisterium teaches without exercising the charism of infallibility, we are called to adhere to those teachings "with religious assent."'

Some say the Church should get rid of its hierarchical structure and be more democratic and open to dialogue.

In recent times, the term "hierarchy" has become a bad word. Many seem to think it's somehow synonymous with inequality. But hierarchy simply means sacred order.

To reject hierarchy, then, is not to reject inequality. To reject hierarchy is to reject God's ordering of the universe. Not a good idea. The opposite of hierarchy is not equality but anarchy - no order at all, chaos.

Our world today is filled with chaos, and it all stems from rejecting God-given authority. To a large extent, what has been specifically rejected is God's plan for sex and marriage. It's difficult to find even one social evil, one element of societal chaos, that is not in some way related to the breakdown of marriage and the misuse of sex.

The Church is not a democracy. The truth about Christ and what he teaches cannot be determined by popular vote. If God reveals something to be true, it's not open for "dialogue" about whether or not it's really true.

Understanding

On the other hand, if by dialogue we mean an open discussion about a given teaching with the goal of understanding why the Church teaches what she teaches, that's legitimate.

But if by dialogue we mean that the Church needs to listen to other opinions with the goal of being willing to change her definitive teaching on faith and morals, that's not legitimate.

The Church simply cannot change what the Holy Spirit has revealed to be true. It's not a matter of stubborn unwillingness; it's a matter of impossibility.

For example, it makes no sense to "dialogue" about whether or not 2 + 2 = 4. We can "dialogue" about why 2 + 2 = 4 with the goal of explaining it for those who don't understand, but we can't hope to change the fact that 2 + 2 = 4.

God does not change for us. We must change for him. How our pride rebels. But until we come to grips with this fundamental reality - that we are not God - then we're living an illusion.

Christopher West is a research fellow and faculty member of the Theology of the Body Institute in West Chester, Pa. His column is syndicated by www.OneMoreSoul.com and reprinted from his book Good News About Sex and Marriage (St. Anthony Messenger Press).