Walter "Bob" Baker

Catholic Social Teaching & Unions in Catholic Primary & Secondary Schools: Clash Between Theory & Practice in the United States Walter "Bob" Baker

This study by Walter "Bob: Baker addresses the failure of many Catholic bishops and Catholic school administrators across the United States to support unions in Catholic primary and secondary schools. It documents that resistance to unions by many Church leaders and administrators, and shows how that resistance represents a serious violation of Catholic Social Teaching on the right of employees to organize themselves into unions. The biblical basis of this right is that all human beings are made in the image of God, and denial of the right to organize is an implicit denial of the biblical basis of that right. The author, after a long military career that included service in Vietnam, took up a second career as a Catholic school teacher. This study shares the author's shock at finding out that many Catholic bishops and administrators "talk the talk" of Catholic Social Doctrine, but then do not "walk the walk." Such a pastoral contradiction undermines Catholic education's attempt to communicate the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, and it thus undermines commitment to the truth by Catholic educational ministry. The book includes a statement by Catholic Scholars for worker Justice on the core of Catholic Social Teaching regarding unions, as well as an essay by Joe Holland on the current pastoral crisis created by the failure of many bishops and Church administrators to follow the evangelical truth of Catholic Social Teaching.