from the bishop

by Bishop Francis I. Malone

THOSE OF US OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER BLACK AND WHITE TELEVISION IN THE 1950S WILL ALSO REMEMBER SOME OF THE FAMOUS SHOWS THAT KEPT US ENTERTAINED UNTIL COLOR TELEVISION BECAME THE NORM. Actually, some of our best memories of childhood were those that kept our eyes fixed on our favorite television shows, cartoons, variety shows, news programs, etc. And when “color” came along, the whole experience of watching television changed. Some of us still watch our favorites of the past in black and white to this day. One of my best memories of television in my youth was the weekly show featuring Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He was SO popular, that he won an Emmy for his broadcast, and he drew from a widespread audience, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. So many of his episodes in the post WWII and Korean eras were educational, as he had an uncanny way of making complicated issues of the day simple enough to understand, even for children. I still recall some of those lessons, and how we arrived at where we were well into the 20th century.

One lesson he taught so well was the impact that the Communist and Industrial Revolutions had on our

economy, our way of life, and the way we lived out our faith. For example, he demonstrated with clarity how the Communist philosophy moved us away from care for the poorest in our society, to how a new emphasis on the State rather than the person was more important. As a result, Communist countries focused on how more important the State was over the individual person. And his demonstration of the Industrial Revolution changed the way we lived our lives in a much different way than we had before. For example, prior to the Industrial Revolution, young boys grew up learning the trade of their fathers. Their fathers became also their mentors, teaching their sons how to use their hands in carpentry, how to farm, how to build. When industry came along, fathers went TO work outside the home, and young boys lost the presence of their fathers in the home and in their trades. As a result, the family suffered.

The point Archbishop Sheen made so well was that these two revolutions had a way of attacking the integrity and centrality of the family over culture and our way of life.

It should not come as a surprise that these two social revolutions also prompted the Church in the late 1800s to address the importance of the “work of our hands,” and the dignity of labor. In fact, much of the social teachings of the Church today have their foundation in how the Church taught us about the dignity of work. Pope Leo XIII wrote his encyclical, “Rerum Novarum” in 1891 to address these issues, and to teach us about the dignity of the human person through the work that we do. And because much of what we as a Church teach regarding work reminds us that the work of our hands is sacred, of God, and a part of His creative plan.

May you rejoice in the labor of your life, for it IS of God, and in doing so, you and I become partners with Him as we go about our lives day after day.