The Social Teaching of the Church: Laborem Exercens, a New Challenge

Abstract

On the day of his election, Pope John Paul II said that he is a Pope who comes from far away. We can safely add that he is also a Pope who looks far ahead. All those who follow day by day the social catechesis of the Pope know that his thinking on man in society is very profound and rich. This applies especially to his most recent encyclical. Even two months after the publication of the document, it is still very difficult to appreciate fully its scope, as well as the deep impact it will have on the future development of the Church's social teaching and on the concrete forms of commitment that it challenges us to take up. It is not the first time that the Holy Father speaks about human work. In many speeches delivered in Rome, in other parts of Italy, and during his journeys around the world, he has offered us elements of his thinking on labor. We may remember particularly his speech at Nowa Huta, June 9, 1979, where he did not hesitate to link work to the Cross, and where he already shared with us the main line of his encyclical. There he stated: Christianity and the Church have no fear of the world of work. They have no fear of the system based on work. The Pope has no fear of men of work. They have always been particularly close to him. He has come from their midst. He has come from the quarries of Zakrzowek, from the Solvay furnaces in Borek Falecki, and then from Nowa Huta. Through all these sur? roundings, through his own experience of work, I make bold to say that the Pope learned the Gospel anew. He noticed and became convinced that the problems being raised today about human labor are deeply engraved in the Gospel, that they can? not be fully solved without the Gospel. The problems being raised today about human labor ... do not come down in the last analysis ? I beg all the specialists to pardon me for saying so ? either to technology or even to economics, but to a funda? mental category: the category of the dignity of work, that is to say, of the dignity of man. The quotation from the Nowa Huta speech includes everything: the context, the concern, the main lines of the Pope's thinking about work. The question was raised whether the Pope had written his encyclical on work because of the events in Poland, and more specifically because of Solidarn?sc. I think that the facts provide an adequate answer to this