September 3, 2014 – Excerpted from “Put Out Into the Deep”, Bishop DiMarzio’s column in The Tablet:

Each year, prior to Labor Day, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, of which Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami is the Chair and I am a member, issues a statement that comments on the present situation of labor in our Nation. Catholic social teaching is rich in a tradition of understanding the proper place of work in the human family.

Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has added to this long tradition by stating that work “Is fundamental to the dignity of a person…. [it] ‘anoints’ us with dignity, fills us with dignity, makes us similar to God … gives one the ability to maintain oneself, one’s family, (and) to contribute to the growth of one’s own nation.”

Although the worst of the recession seems to be behind us here in the U.S., there are many countries where the work situation seems only to get worse. In our own society, unemployment is too high, especially among African-American males, Hispanics and other minority groups. Catholic social teaching tells us that work is the key to the social question, the social question being, “How can the common good can be achieved in any society?”

Without every member of a society contributing to the common good by their own labor, societies find themselves in terrible circumstances where wage inequality and opportunity inequality discourage human growth and development.

Read the full text of the Bishop’s column on The Tablet website.

August 20, 2014 – Excerpted from “Put Out Into the Deep,” Bishop DiMarzio’s column in The Tablet:

In the final article of my three-part series on the preparatory document on the Synod of the Family, Part III is entitled: “An Openness to Life and Parental Responsibility in Upbringing.” It can be seen that the difficulty and thorny issues facing the family, and in fact individuals today, for the Synod are directly brought into the process of evaluation and consideration.

The pastoral challenges concerning the openness to life are truly at the heart of the issues for families today. The publication of Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical “Humanae Vitae” in many ways was prophetic. Even in its promulgation, the Holy Father knew that it would cause intense negative outcry because, as he said, “But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a sign of contradiction.” The difficulties in the document “Humanae Vitae” reveals “the agonizing situations of people today when faced with the subjects of love, the generation of life, the reciprocity between man and woman, and fatherhood and motherhood.”

One of the questions asked in the initial interrogatory was, “Do couples know and accept the Magisterium of the Church regarding the openness of life?” In two senses, the positive aspects are unknown, while the negative aspects seem to be known and characterized as an “intrusion in the intimate life of the couple and an encroachment on the autonomy of conscience.”

Read the full text of the Bishop’s column on The Tablet website.