Abstract
This essay explores Catholic social teaching on work, focusing on how labor should enable humans to fulfill their vocation through experiences of dominion and communion. Drawing from papal encyclicals and theological anthropology, it examines how work becomes a means for humans to exercise their God-like faculties by intelligently shaping creation (dominion) and building rich relationships (communion). The essay argues that Catholic teaching offers distinctive contributions to contemporary workplace justice movements through its emphasis on two priorities: promoting worker-ownership and supporting family life. Worker-ownership, especially through cooperatives, enables labor to become an exercise of dominion, while family-centered policies make work a means of communion. Far from being peripheral concerns, these priorities follow inexorably from Catholic theological anthropology and offer concrete guidance for labor law and policy. The essay concludes that achieving more humane work arrangements requires not merely technical solutions but the moral conviction to establish and maintain systems that honor work’s proper place in God’s plan for human flourishing.
Recommended Citation
Stefan M. McDaniel,
Work and Human Vocation in Catholic Social Teaching,
69
St. Louis U. L.J.
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol69/iss2/4