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Most Reverend William F. Murphy Bishop of Rockville Centre Chairman, Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
September 1, 2008
The late Msgr. George G. Higgins was a remarkable priest whose primary work for many years was connecting the Church and the labor movement around Catholic teaching on worker rights. One of his many contributions was to offer an annual Labor Day statement on issues of work and economic justice. This American Catholic tradition has been continued by the bishop chairman of the Conference committee that works on economic issues. As the new Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I take up this task with some trepidation but with a desire to begin by paying homage to my friend of many years, Msgr. George Higgins.
Msgr. Higgins was a powerful bridge between the Catholic Church and the labor movement. He was a realist, but a hopeful one. Monsignor was irascible and rather confident in his opinions as well as in his convictions of what needed to be done. To his very core, he believed that workers were best served by joining together with other workers in a union. I suspect he would have had some trenchant comments about the situation of workers and wages, working conditions, and the changing face of work in a globalized marketplace. While he would have waxed eloquent about the “big picture,” his goal would never stray from an extraordinary ability to measure the large economic issues by their impact on the average working man and woman.
Monsignor would have been harsh in his judgment about the greed and irresponsibility that led to the mortgage foreclosure crisis. He would have had some caustic
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