Human Work II. The Prophetic Value of Rerum Novarum from The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

I’ve summarized each longer paragraph of the Compendium below for quick consumption. Starting with Chapter 6 “Human Work” and Chapter 7 – “Economic Life”.  Each section of the chapters will be in separate posts. 

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church
HUMAN WORK
II. The Prophetic Value of Human Work II. The Prophetic Value of Rerum Novarum

• 267. The Gospel had to be preached and lived in the tumult of social events in a more dynamic society, taking into account the complexities of new phenomena of the unimaginable transformations brought about by mechanization. At the centre of the Church’s pastoral concern was the ever urgent worker question, that is, the problem of the exploitation of workers brought about by the new industrial organization of labour, capitalistically oriented, and the problem, no less serious, of ideological manipulation — socialist and communist — of the just claims advanced by the world of labour.
• 268. Rerum Novarum is above all a heartfelt defence of the inalienable dignity of workers, connected with the importance of the right to property, the principle of cooperation among the social classes, the rights of the weak and the poor, the obligations of workers and employers and the right to form associations.
• 269. Starting with Rerum Novarum, the Church has never stopped considering the problems of workers within the context of a social question (certain evils and grievances affecting the wage-earning classes, and calling for removal or remedy) which has progressively taken on worldwide dimensions. The Encyclical Laborem Exercens enhances the need for a deeper understanding of the meaning and tasks that work entails. It does this in consideration of the fact that “fresh questions and problems are always arising, there are always fresh hopes, but also fresh fears and threats, connected with this basic dimension of human existence: man’s life is built up every day from work, from work it derives its specific dignity, but at the same time work contains the unceasing measure of human toil and suffering, and also of the harm and injustice which penetrate deeply into social life within individual nations and on the international level”. In fact, work is the “essential key” to the whole social question and is the condition not only for economic development but also for the cultural and moral development of persons, the family, society and the entire human race.