from: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013
Following my article of yesterday on middle class Kenyans continue to be exploited every time Labour Day being celebrated, some of our readers have sent in some comments and queries.
Peres Were of the graphic design, Westalnds-Nairobi asks: “Father, do you think government of Kenya will ever listen to the cry of middle class?”- Kizito Nyongesa from Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) writes: “Father Omolo thank you very much for your News Dispatch, they have helped me to have big picture on many things happening around us.”
The third reader is a Theology three Seminarian from Nairobi who does not want his name to be mentioned for fear of his authorities. He describes a sad and painful story where his parish priest is exploiting his cook by giving only Ksh 5,000 as his salary every month.
This cook has children to take to school, wife to take care of, medical care, food, clothing, etc. This is the same person who cooks, washes the clothes of the priests and irons them. When he asks the priest to add his salary, the priest tells him he has no money since the sadaka (offertory) is not enough.
But this priest is able to entertain his friends with more than Ksh 5,000 every week. He drives luxurious car, pays school fees to his siblings, able to talk on his phones hours and hours and many other things that cannot be counted here all.
This seminarian wants to know whether there is a place this cook can complain, that is a kind of a union defending the rights of the workers. The seminarian goes on to say that even it there was this cook may be afraid to go because when the priest discovers it will be the end of his job.
This story is just one sample of how many workers have been exploited in church institutions which are supposed to defend their rights. Most of the workers in these institutions have been treated like beasts of burden- an animal, such as a donkey, ox, or elephant, used for transporting loads or doing other heavy work.
The principles of Catholic social teaching on this issue are very clear. One reason compelling Leo XIII to write Rerum Novarum was because of the reason that middle class workers have been exploited like beats of burden. Leo XIII – Rerum Novarum.
http://www.google.co.ke/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vatican.va%2Fholy_father%2Fleo_xiii%2Fencyclicals%2Fdocuments%2Fhf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html&ei=FvCBUaDxJYbYswa-kIH4Cg&usg=AFQjCNHZZv4Y-UQdX6cekrJXwHf2yv9FsQ&bvm=bv.45960087,d.bmk
His conviction was that the present age has handed over the working poor to inhumane employers and greedy competitors. He saw the working poor as needy and helpless and insufficiently protected against injustices and violence. His sympathy went out to these poor, who have a “downcast heart”.
Leo felt that most of the working poor live undeservedly in miserable and wretched conditions with no medical care, minimal wage, no retirement benefits, no savings, and no holidays- they overworked as if they were not human beings created in image of God.
That is why even more significantly, Leo challenged the position of those who use religion to support their oppression of the poor. In a clear anticipation of what would later be known as the preferential option for the poor.
The working poor, Leo asserts, should be liberated from the savagery of greedy people. He wanted the poor to understand that the lowest in society cannot be made equal with the highest and that poverty is no disgrace.
Leo XIII made it clear that the poor and the exploited were not to accept unjust treatment as though it were inevitable, and that they were to stand up for their rights at the same time that they helped to preserve good order in society.
His advice to them was: “protect your own interests, but refrain from violence and never riot; your demands should be reasonable; press your claims with reason; form unions but do not strike.
Leo XIII wanted the working poor to protect their interests, to make demands, to press their claims, and the principal means for doing this was the formation of unions. In their efforts to claim their rights, the working poor should find in the government an ally, and Leo made it clear that the working poor should be given special consideration by the government.
Rerum Novarum also contained a message to those who deal with the working poor. For Leo, employers have clear moral obligations: workers are not to be treated as slaves; the dignity of your workers’ human personality must be respected; do not use people as things for gain; do not oppress the needy and wretched for your own profit.
Leo tells the wealthy the same thing he told the working poor: Christian morals must be re-established, for true dignity resides in moral living. Morality for the wealthy employers consists in coming to terms with their “proud spirit” and being “moved toward kindness”. They are to be mindful of their duties, which mean that they are not to oppress workers with unjust burdens or inhuman conditions.
The encyclical Rerum Novarum is considered the first great social encyclical of modern times. It was published by Pope Leo XIII on May 15, 1891, a landmark date in the history of the Church Magisterium Forty years later, Pius XI commemorated it with the encyclical Quadragessimo Anno, and on the eightieth anniversary Paul VI issued his letter Octogessima Adveniens. Finally, John Paul II commemorated the ninetieth anniversary with the most recent of the great social encyclicals, Laborem Exercens.
All these encyclicals emphasize the important of the main fundamental rights which include the right to life, liberty, and security of person; the right to physical and moral integrity; the right to sufficient and necessary means to live in a becoming manner (food, clothing, housing, rest, health care, social services).
The right to security in case of sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, unemployment, and any involuntary loss of the means of subsistence; the right to due respect for one’s person and good name.
The right to education; the right of assembly and of association; the right to form unions; the right to participate actively in public life; the right to personal participation in attaining the common good; the right to the legal protection of one’s rights.
It is God’s will that man should engage in work, an activity which encompasses all those human efforts which aim at improved conditions of life (or better still, the process by which man understands, cares for, superintends, and transforms the earth and its resources).
When man was created in the image and likeness of God, man received the command to rule the world, subduing the earth and all it contains, thus continuing and cooperating in the creative work of God.
Pope Francis I in his homily on the feast of St Joseph the worker emphasized this fact. The Book of Genesis tells us that God created man and woman by entrusting to them the task of populating the Earth and subjugating it, which does not mean to exploit it, but to cultivate and guard it, to care for it with their own labour (cf. Gen 1:28; 2:15). On St. Joseph the Worker | ZENIT – The World Seen From Rome.
http://www.google.co.ke/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zenit.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2Fon-st-joseph-the-worker&ei=XAmCUazKB4zJrQeX7oHoCw&usg=AFQjCNH0uirUdFU6_rhNpGgmFIz-4n_x8Q
The work is part of the plan of God’s love; we are called to cultivate and safeguard all the goods of creation and in this way we participate in the work of creation! The work is fundamental to the dignity of a person.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002