In these times there is much secular media and church chatter about the deliberations for the selection of the next pope in the Catholic Church.

A great deal of this is simply ill-informed and stereotypical political banter. There is also some intelligent discussion which indicates that the role of the pontiff and of the Church as “sign” is crucial to the world in a state of crisis.

There is one personified “sign” of discipleship and holiness to the world in times of uncertainty and conflict, which all the popes over the last two centuries have considered: Joseph of Nazareth or St Joseph.

The Scriptures give us an important glimpse into the historical figure of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. He is known in scriptural shorthand as “being a just man” (Matthew 1:9).

That short title contains a world of meaning. The word used here infers that St Joseph was more than simply a “good bloke”. The Greek word dikaios is chosen carefully by the evangelist. It links Joseph to the ancient patriarch Noah in typological terms.

Joseph is the epitome in the New Covenant of the Hebrew virtue of saddiq, that is, righteousness. The evangelist recognises Joseph as a man who responds to God’s grace, a man of uprightness of heart and behaviour, a man who is just to his neighbour and who gives right worship to God. He is therefore not simply the object of arcane Catholic devotion but the model of the biblical man in both Jewish and broadly Christian terms.

He is not simply a stickler for “the rules” as we see in St Matthew’s gospel. His justice is like that of God the Father – it is full of mercy: “he wished to spare Mary” the possibly lethal sanctions of the law.

It was Pope Leo XIII who was so concerned about the working conditions of the often displaced and abused labourers of the Industrial Revolution who contributed to this modern wave of papal interest in St Joseph in 1889.

On the Feast of the Assumption in that year he published the encyclical, Quamquam Pluries, which addresses a certain crisis in the Church in the world, but also implored all classes of people from the “noble of birth” to those who were “humble of birth” to see in St Joseph both the dignity of work and the Christian vocation to justice.

In 1955 the Venerable Pope Pius XII, sensitive to the post-war upheavals in Italy and the threat of Marxism as a movement through the trade unions and labour organisations around the world, cannily dedicated May Day to St Joseph the Worker. With his encouragement, many Catholics at the time dedicated themselves to engagement in the defence and promotion of justice in labour through unions, guilds and co-operatives.

Pope Pius XII spoke of the importance of valuing work and workers and in their ongoing formation in virtue and faith.

In a letter read on radio, Pope Pius XII declared:

“But it is certain that no worker was ever so perfectly and profoundly penetrated by it as the putative Father of Jesus, who lived with Him in the closest intimacy and community of family and work. Thus, if you want to be close to Christ, We too today repeat to you ‘Ite ad Ioseph’: Go to Joseph!” (Gen. 41, 55)

There is sound reason for invoking Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, as the patron of work and workers themselves. In the Gospels he is called a tektōn. That is a Greek word which is an umbrella of meanings.

A tektōn is understood to be a skilled or masterly worker: one who has something of an affinity with the material with which he or she works. In the times of the Gospels a tektōn was typically someone who worked with wood – a ship builder, the builder of house frames or, as we traditionally understand St Joseph to be, a carpenter. It is also likely that Joseph formed his son Jesus in his own trade.

Pope St John Paul II wrote often about the dignity of work, social justice and St Joseph. He, like his predecessors, pointed to the importance of all sorts of work as vocation, including often neglected work of the mind and of the heart in caring for the vulnerable and in the home.

His important 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens is dedicated to work and to the personal dignity of workers. The Polish pope sees Christianity as presenting a “gospel of work” which is vastly different from the classical pagan sense of work as time-serving or demeaning, fit only for slaves. He contemplates the work of Adam in the garden and the work of both St Joseph and his son.

It is a vision of work so vastly different from the calculating utilitarianism of either secularised capitalism or socialism.

Pope St John Paul II writes:

“Christianity brought about a fundamental change of ideas in this field, taking the whole content of the Gospel message as its point of departure, especially the fact that the one who, while being God, became like us in all things devoted most of the years of his life on earth to manual work at the carpenter’s bench.”

It is important in the forthcoming federal elections to consider not only the way our candidates consider the sanctity of life or the importance of the family, but also the nature and the dignity of work and of workers.

In the tradition of social teaching, may we also call on St Joseph to be a patron of social justice and invoke this prayer before our own work.

Wishing blessings on your work and wisdom for the task of this weekend.

Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre