Mission Statement
The Higgins Labor Research Center (HLRC) at the University of Notre Dame is dedicated to initiating and promoting research, teaching, and programming relevant to the questions, needs and interests of people who work for a living. An understanding of the working conditions, attitudes, and goals of workers as well as the economic and social forces that shape the workplace inform the research. The Center supports unions as a legitimate means for working people to express, defend, and engage their interests in the national and global community. Named for "labor priest" Monsignor George Higgins, the HLRC strives to provide support for the Catholic Social Teaching on economic justice. In doing so, the Center serves as a home for multi-disciplinary research and educational activities encompassing a range of scholarly disciplines, including economics, history, anthropology, sociology, political science, theology, law, and film/theatre/television.
About the Center
The Higgins Labor Research Center (HLRC) was formally inaugurated in 1994 and is named after Monsignor George G. Higgins, the longtime advisor to the U.S. Catholic Bishops on labor, civil rights, poverty, and ecumenical issues, and winner of the 2001 Laetare Medal for exemplary Catholic public service. With Higgins' blessing, the Center has taken on the important work of protecting the dignity of the worker and educating both the Notre Dame and larger community. The Center attempts to do this by engaging in professional research, teaching relevant courses, training graduate and undergraduate students on issues affecting workers and the workplace, and providing programming that informs and inspires.
While originating with members of Notre Dame's Department of Economics, HLRC membership now includes Notre Dame faculty and distinguished faculty elsewhere who were once affiliated with Notre Dame and maintain strong ties with our faculty. Notre Dame members teach and research in the economics, history, political science, sociology, anthropology, and theology departments of the College of Arts & Letters, as well as in the College of Law. Faculty are at the University of Cambridge in England and at Indiana University in the United States, among other locations.
By "professional research," HLRC membership envisions and embodies the norms of empirical social science, that is, the generation and interpretation of data gathered and informed by accepted theoretical frameworks, but also by admission of the values that influence the choice of issues, populations, methodologies, and applications of the research. HLRC members accept the concepts of society and the human person of Judaic-Christian social teaching. Thus, "the economy exists for people, not people for the economy," so well-stated in the U.S. Catholic Bishops 1986 Pastoral, "Economic Justice for All." With such competence and vision, HLRC members throughout the years have been involved in group and individual projects, researching and sharing through publications and presentations. Several of these projects received greatly appreciated funding.
Catholic Social Teaching Resources
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) notes seven themes of CST at the link http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/projects/socialteaching/excerpt.shtml
USCCB statement on 10 points of “A Catholic Framework for Economic Life” may be found at http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/ACatholicFrameworkforEconomicLife.pdf
Commentary on the significance of “A Catholic Framework for Economic Life” - http://www.acton.org/publicat/randl/article.php?id=451
USCCB on “Minimum Wage” (February 2006)
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/minwage206.shtml
USCCB Labor Day statements:
2007: A Time to Remember; A Time to Recommit
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/Labor%20Day%202007.pdf
2005: Work, Pope John Paul II, and Catholic Teaching
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/2005final.pdf
2004: Global Trade that Works for All
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/ld04.htm
2002: Monsignor George G. Higgins: Faithful Priest and Voice for Workers
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/lbrfinal.htm
Todd Whitmore is the director of the Program in Catholic Social Tradition at the University of Notre Dame – www.nd.edu/~cstprog/insidepage.htm
The Office for Social Justice St. Paul and Minneapolis lists all major Church documents (encyclicals and statements) regarding CST - http://www.osjspm.org/social_teaching_documents.aspx
The Social Agenda website is a publication of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and provides a collection of Magisterial Texts - http://www.thesocialagenda.org/