Catholic Social Teaching on Labor and Society

http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/hab270.htm

1. What Church social encyclical was written to commemorate the 90th anniversary of
Rerum Novarum revolutionary change)?
a. Laborem Exercens (On Human Labor
2. What is the focus of this encyclical?
a. Homo faber (man as worker)
3. How does Pope John Paul consider work in his encyclical?
a. The “key to the social question”
4. What does work mean?
a. Work means “any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever
its nature or circumstances;
b. It means any activity that can and must be recognized as, in the midst of all
the many activities of which man is capable.”
5. What distinguishes man from the rest of the animal world?
a. Work
6. Why must man work?
a. To earn his daily bread
b. To contribute to the continual advancement of science and technology
c. To elevate cultural and moral level of society within which he lives
7. What makes work a fundamental dimension of man’s existence on earth?
a. Man is the image of God partly through the mandate received from his creator
to subdue, to dominate, the earth.
8. What makes work a transitive activity?
a. It is an activity beginning in the human subject and then is directed toward an
external object.
b. It presupposes a specific dominion by man over the earth.
c. It confirms and develops, simultaneously, this dominion.
9. What does the phrase ‘the earth’ mean?
a. It means that fragment of the visible universe that man inhabits.
10. What does the expression ‘subdue the earth’ mean?
a. It means the all the resources that the earth contains and which, through the
conscious activity of man, can be discovered and used for his ends.
11. What is God’s original ordering?
a. The tools which man invents, the technology he uses, are to be employed in
such a manner as conforms to the moral order, with God's original plan for his
creation.
12. What is work in its objective sense?

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 a. In its objective sense work refers to what is accomplished by our work:
agriculture, industry, services, research, and the results of human ingenuity
which are machines and technology.
13. What does technology mean?
a. Technology refers to the whole set of instruments which man uses in his work.
b. It facilitates his work, perfects, accelerates and augments it.
c. It leads to an increase in the quantity of things produced, and in many cases
improves their quality
14. What is work in its subjective sense?
a. Work in its subjective sense refers to man as the subject.
15. What is the purpose of work in its subjective sense?
a. Man's work must serve to realize his humanity, to fulfill the calling to be a
person that is his by reason of his very humanity.
16. What manifests throughout the process of work?
a. Man manifests himself and confirms himself as the one who "dominates."
17. What is the ethical value of work?
a. "Human work has an ethical value of its own, which clearly and directly
remains linked to the fact that the one who carries it out is a person, a
conscious and free subject, that is to say, a subject that decides about
himself."
18. What is the basis in determining the value of human work?
a. It is the human person who does the work.
19. Where can the sources of the dignity of work be sought?
a. It is in the subjective sense of work.
b. Man is the primary basis of the value of work, who is the subject.
20. Which is correct to say: work is “for man” or man “for work”?
a. Work is “for man”.
21. What is the purpose of any given work?
a. It is man who is the purpose of work.
22. Is there any other purpose of work?
a. None. Work either enriches man who is to ‘subdue the earth’ or dehumanizes
man.
23. What does ‘bonum arduum’ mean?
a. It is a good not only in the sense of being useful or something to enjoy, it is
also something that corresponds to man's dignity that expresses this dignity
and increases it.
b. "Work is a good thing for man--a good thing for his humanity--because
through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs,

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 but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed in a sense
becomes 'more a human being' "
24. Which is the priority: labor or capital?
a. It is labor.
25. What is always the primary efficient cause in the process of production?
a. It is labor.
26. What remains always as a mere instrument or instrumental cause in the process of
production?
a. It is the capital.
27. What is the purpose of ownership?
a. Ownership of natural resources, i.e., private property in its original sense,
means to make them part of one's workbench where man the worker renders
the earth fruitful for man's use.
28. Why is labor inseparable from capital?
a. "When man works, using all the means of production, he also wishes the fruit
of his work to be used by himself and others, and he wishes to be able to take
part in the very work process as a share in responsibility and creativity at the
workbench to which he applies himself".
b. Man's work concerns not only the economy but also, and especially, personal
values.
29. What makes work a source of rights?
a. Man must work both because the Creator has commanded it and because of
his own humanity, which requires work in order to be maintained and
developed.
30. What are the three spheres of the subjective dimension of human work?
a. The personal dimension of human work, which regards man as the subject of
work and its true maker and creator.
b. The forming of family life, where work is a condition for making it possible to
found a family, since the family requires the means of subsistence which man
normally gains through work.
c. The great society to which man belongs to, the country of which he is a child,
and for the whole human family of which he is a member, since he is the heir
to the work of previous generations and at the same time a share in the
building the future of those who will come after him in the succession of
history.
31. What constitute the moral obligation of work?
a. All the three spheres.
32. How does work unite people?
a. Work has a social power: the power to build community.
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 b. Both those who work and those who manage the means of production or who
own them must in some way are united in this community.
c. Their union remains a constructive factor of social order and solidarity, and it
is impossible to ignore it.
33. How can one develop a spirituality of work?
a. Work brings us closer to God, the Creator and Redeemer.
b. Through work, we participate in God's salvific plan for man and the world.
c. Through work, we deepen our friendship with Christ by accepting, through
faith, a living participation in His threefold mission as priest, prophet and king.

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