To the editor:
I would like to congratulate Dr. Constance Nielsen on her fair and balanced contribution to the guest column that was published in the Catholic Herald on March 3.
A couple of weeks ago, referring to Pope John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens 20, Archbishop Listecki partially and one-sidedly commented on the rights and value of unions. Nielsen dared to go beyond the archbishop’s blind spot by quoting the precarious aspect that John Paul II emphasized in LE 20.
It is painfully regrettable that in recent years the public employees’ union in Wisconsin has turned into a kind of “group or class egoism” as precisely cautioned by John Paul II in LE 20. Today, union’s fiscal powers are shamelessly misused to accumulate the campaign contributions of just one political party to get it elected.
In other words, it seems today the union is struggling to protect and preserve its right to support the political party of its choice and that party’s pet programs instead of protecting and bargaining for the rights of all members who pay the union dues and for the common good.
I am wondering whether the archbishop is aware that a percentage of my union dues, which is deducted automatically from my paycheck, is going to some social programs that good Christians do not subscribe?
John Ronzani, Waupun