NADJPCC: Labor Day Reflection

We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident… As we mark the 250th anniversary of the United States we offer these reflections as part of a broader 250th Anniversary initiative—inviting reflection on key national moments through the lens of Dominican values, especially Veritas, Truth rooted in lived experience, and asking what that calls us to today.

Labor Day invites us to renew our commitment to human dignity. Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 defense of the inalienable dignity of workers in Rerum Novarum revealed a middle way between warring ideologies. Today, amidst the rise of a new technocracy, Leo XIV renews our focus on human dignity in the pages of Magnifica Humanitas. As technology spawns new forms of slavery, let us pray that, from this collapse in established systems, new structures will arise that honor the dignity of human persons above that of machines. May those called to work for the greater good of the global community collaborate to build a more just world.