OSV STORY FOR SEPTEMBER 1

'Work without end,' Amen

We all know we are working too much. But how many of us take the time to count the cost of our loss of leisure?

By William Bole

In his classic work "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," the German sociologist Max Weber related the following notion of a contemporary of his, left unnamed:

"The Catholic is quieter, having less of an acquisitive impulse; he prefers a life of the greatest possible security, even with a smaller income, to a life of risk and excitement, even though it may bring the chance of gaining honor and riches.

"The proverb says jokingly, 'Either eat well or sleep well.' In the present case, the Protestant prefers to eat well, the Catholic to sleep undisturbed."

It was, of course, an exaggeration -- a cartoonlike picture of Protestant and Catholic work habits, circa 1900. But as Weber understood, behind this caricature was a truthful rendering of the classical Catholic view of labor and leisure, as against the Protestant work ethic.

What Weber called "economic traditionalism" -- the Catholic view -- had stubbornly resisted the Calvinist idea that hard work is a virtue unto itself.

Leisure duties

Today, Catholic faith still challenges the prevailing work ethic, according to Boston College theologian Stephen Pope. He pointed out that a leisure ethic has always been taught by the Church, if not religiously practiced by Catholics.

The author of a recent paper on the subject, Pope said that in the preindustrial era, the Church upheld the priority of leisure over labor, and even after, has looked upon free time, well spent, as at least equal in value to good work. Papal encyclicals have invoked a right to leisure for workers.

But Pope the theologian noted that the Catholic tradition goes further to assert "our responsibility to be properly leisured."

Leisure duties include prayer, contemplation and religious festivals. "These are the high points of life, when we can do things for their own sake," he told Our Sunday Visitor recently.

By contrast, Pope said the modern work ethic has a tendency to "bring with it a whole secular spirit that says the meaning of life is here and now, in making, acquiring and consuming."

In today's frenetic work world, being properly leisured would require "a deeper recognition of the value of close friends, marital romance and familial affection," Pope said in his paper titled "Labor and Leisure: A Catholic Perspective."

Yet the Catholic leisure ethic appears to be swimming against a cultural and economic tide in the United States.

In her widely noted book "The Overworked American" (Basic Books, 1993), Harvard University economist Juliet Schor reported that since the late 1960s, the average American worker has seen his or her work hours increase by the equivalent of one month a year.

As one explanation, Schor writes that many Americans, in effect, have traded away leisure for consumption, falling into what she calls an "insidious cycle of work and spend."

The erosion of wages is also a factor: 80 percent of American workers must put in an extra 245 hours, or at least six weeks a year, just to reach their 1973 standard of living, according to her study.

Holy 'waste' of time

In Schor's opinion, such findings run against the prevailing notion that industrial capitalism has created a society of leisure, with 40-hour work weeks and paid vacations. Schor believes that leisure was actually more plentiful in the medieval era, the so-called Dark Ages, when time was ruled not by the factory clock, but by the Christian calendar.

"The extent and prevalence of holy days at that time was staggering from the point of view of what we have today," she said in an article that is part of a booklet produced by the Massachusetts Council of Churches.

The council fought a losing battle two years ago to preserve the state's Sunday closing laws, or "blue laws." Its booklet, "Labor and Leisure: A Look at Contemporary Values," also includes Pope's paper, along with other religious perspectives.

"In England, which had the hardest working [people] of the European countries, workers had about a third of all days devoted to festival or holy days," Schor said. "In Catholic countries, it was greater. Spain is estimated to have had five . . . months devoted to feasts and holy days. All of these feast days were days which the peasants took by custom. They were important local traditions."

Then came the rise of industrialism and the modern work ethic.

"The Puritans, in alliance with emerging capitalist interests, waged a battle to eliminate this rest time, and in exchange for that offered Sundays as a common day of rest," Schor continued.

"Eventually, that model did triumph, [and] workers then worked six days a week with Sunday off and other holidays telescoped down to the bare minimum: a day or two at Christmas, a day at Easter. It was a tremendous reduction in the amount of free time that people had."

Now, with the demise of Sunday closing laws in the United States, even the common day of rest has gone the way of the old Puritans.

The subtitle of Schor's book is "The Unexpected Decline of Leisure." It alludes to the widespread feeling in decades past that America would become a society of leisure, with more than enough -- maybe too much -- free time for everyone.

But the expectations of ample leisure were not unfounded, said Benjamin Hunnicutt, a professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and author of "Work Without End" (Temple University Press, 1990), a history of the movement for shorter work time.

By the 1940s, trade unions and other social forces had managed to shrink the average work day by half of what it was at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution nearly a century earlier, Hunnicutt said.

A few farseeing industrialists, such as Henry Ford, had supported the 40-hour week, reasoning that it would allow more time for driving around in cars and shopping in stores.

But Ford and others worried that a 30-hour week -- pushed by organized labor in the 1930s -- would breed idleness and even crime.

More than that, Hunnicutt said, Ford feared that if people turned from working and spending to other pursuits, less commercial in nature, it would prove disastrous to the consumer economy.

Among those offering an alternative vision was Msgr. John A. Ryan, a leading social reformer of that era who drew his inspiration from the social teaching of Pope Leo XIII.

Msgr. Ryan believed that the reduction in work hours presented "the opportunity for a great flowering of culture and religion among the masses of people," Hunnicutt explained.

A professor of moral theology at The Catholic University of America and a top adviser to the U.S. bishops, Msgr. Ryan dissented from the consumerist gospel preached by Ford and others.

"He thought it was materialism out of control -- that the cycle of work and spend would ultimately enslave people," said Hunnicutt.

Ford's gospel won out over Msgr. Ryan's, culminating in what Hunnicutt regards as a "religion of work" in present-day America.

But the monsignor, who died in 1945, still has his disciples -- among them Hunnicutt, who keeps a framed photo of Msgr. Ryan on his desk at home.

"[Msgr.] Ryan believed that work was a good thing, an important thing, but that it wasn't as good as the things people find outside of work, like family, community and church," said Hunnicutt, an Episcopalian.

Leisure is no trivial matter, said the leisure professor. And Pope the theology professor agrees. He sees the questions of labor and leisure as pivotal to the future of faith and family.

"A lot of people are having trouble in their marriages because they don't realize that having a family requires 'wasting' a lot of time -- just being together, going to the beach, reading together, taking long walks," Pope said.

That sort of activity -- by its nature "noninstrumental," something done

for its own sake -- rebels against the "modern mentality of always looking to get ahead, looking for the next raise, the next promotion. We have a responsibility to create leisure time" to be present with God and neighbor, Pope said, calling attention to the Catholic leisure ethic.

"By virtue of our baptism, we're all called to be holy people, and you can't become holy without leisure."

Bole is a senior correspondent for Our Sunday Visitor

The Pope and the 32-hour workweek

In March, Pope John Paul II called for shorter work hours as one way of sharing work with the jobless. His words have now become part of a fledgling movement for a 32-hour workweek.

"We believe that this initiative is consistent with Christian teachings on economic questions," says a letter being circulated by the Campaign to Endorse the Iowa City Declaration.

The declaration was drafted at a conference late last winter that brought 200 advocates of a shorter workweek to the University of Iowa. It calls for the 32-hour workweek to become the norm for full-time workers in the first decade of the next century.

In its letter asking for endorsements and contributions, the campaign points to Christian social teachings and adds, "Pope John Paul II has recently endorsed the idea of cutting work hours as a means toward sharing work with unemployed people.

He has urged business and labor 'to strengthen, in the world of work, new relations,' in observing the passage to a new millennium."

The Pope made the remark in a March 22 speech to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a group of scholars that advises the Vatican and applies Catholic social principles to current issues.

While calling for new arrangements in the workplace, the Pope said the changes "must not go against the fundamental right of everyone to have a job which allows him to support his family."

The Iowa City effort is nonsectarian, but organizers hope to involve Catholics and others in a new movement for shorter work time, said Benjamin K. Hunnicutt, a professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa and co-chairman of the campaign. -- William Bole

Copyright Our Sunday Visitor 1996; from the 9/1/96 edition

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