In our part of the world summer is to be enjoyed as a time for outdoor recreation and vacation from school and work, if circumstances permit. Once September comes, we are ready to celebrate Labor Day and what it means for our country, our local communities and our families.

2010 is not a happy year for work in America. We don’t need anyone to tell us that millions of people are unemployed or underemployed. Reports suggest that even if 100,000 new jobs were created across the country every month, it could take nearly seven years just to get back to where we were before the financial crisis. Ohio has been hit hard by the financial and economic failures of the last few years.

Even before the crisis, it was clear that old assumptions were being put to the test by new economic realities. We may have developed a more service-based economy, but we have not been able to replace the loss of creative productivity in the industries upon which states like Ohio relied heavily for so long.

Economic crises are not without precedent in the modern world. The church’s social teaching on problems created by the Industrial Revolution began with Pope Leo XIII in 1891. Ever since then, the church’s pastors have developed this social doctrine, most recently Pope Benedict in his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate.

The charge is made against religion, and Christianity in particular, that it sacrifices human happiness in this world for the sake of happiness in the world to come. It is true that in the cross we find the meaning of human suffering, and that self-sacrificing love is indeed the path to heaven. However, as the Second Vatican Council taught, “while we are warned that it profits a man nothing if he gain the whole world and lose himself, the expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one” (Gaudium et spes, no. 39).

More recently, either out of ignorance or malice, critics charge that the Catholic Church is obsessed with the abortion of unborn human beings to the neglect of the already born. The reality is that the church’s social teaching is focused on the integral good of the human person at every stage of life. For over a century the church has been a champion of everything from workers’ rights to health care.

And this is not mere theory. After government, our Catholic Church is probably the largest provider of charitable services on the planet. Did you know it is estimated that one out of every four AIDS patients in the world is being cared for by a Catholic institution or organization? Catholic charities extend to people of all races, nations and religions.

Closer to home, amid our economic problems, the number of people requesting help from the Catholic Charities offices of the Diocese of Toledo has been staggering. Last year in the 19 counties of our diocese 9,959 calls were received from people looking for assistance — a 77 percent increase from the previous year.

A number of these calls were from people needing emergency rent assistance. Last year our diocesan Catholic Charities was able to help 144 families with emergency rent assistance, thus preventing them from becoming homeless. Thankfully, six months later, 93 percent of those who received rent assistance were able to remain in their homes.

The challenges for families and individuals as a result of the weak economy continue to mount. As always, the foundation of support for Catholic charities — whether diocesan, national or international — is the financial generosity of the Catholic people. My thanks go to everyone who supports our diocesan Catholic Charities by contributing to the Annual Catholic Appeal (ACA), as well as contributing to collections for Catholic Relief Services, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, parish food pantries and so many other Catholic charitable efforts.

2010 is not only the centenary of our diocese, but also the centenary of the birth of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Who better than she personifies the work of charity? As she once said, “We stand before the world as ambassadors of peace by preaching the message of love in action … To me the most important thing is to serve the neediest of people … This is what we are trying to do: feed, clothe and visit Christ in the sick, the dying, the lepers, and the abandoned children.” Spurred on by a vision of the kingdom to come, she and her Missionaries of Charity were intent on making this world better place too.

Works of charity are not our only Christian obligation. In the words of Pope Benedict: “Deeds without knowledge are blind,  and knowledge without love is sterile. … The individual who is animated by true charity labors skillfully to discover the causes of misery, to find the means to combat it, to overcome it resolutely … (Caritas in Veritate, no. 30). This aspect of Catholic social teaching requires that as good citizens we promote and work for a more just, equitable, humane and peaceful country and world. In this effort, money and technology are important, but they are not absolute. Without the moral dimension that the church constantly calls for, money and technology are ineffective, and even destructive.

So where should our thoughts turn following Labor Day? To the needs of the present, and our duty of love to the neediest among us, to be sure — but also to the future, with a resolution filled with the hope that the Gospel gives, that we are called to make a difference for a better country and world, together, with God’s help.