For the past dozen years or so, and at various times before that, this column has marked the annual Labor Day observance in the United States and Canada by reflecting on Catholic social teaching, particularly as it applies to those employed by the church itself.

This year is no exception. The demands of justice in the church are just as great now as they were in past years. If anything, the church's lay employees --- in parishes, schools, hospitals, diocesan offices, and the like --- are more vulnerable than ever before. The announced closings of some 65 parishes in the archdiocese of Boston is a case in point.

This column does not necessarily dispute the need for such action. Archdiocesan officials insist that the parish closings are demanded by demographic shifts in the Catholic population, a decline in Mass attendance (now at 20 percent) and in the number of priests, and the worsening of the church's financial condition, driven in large part by the multi-million-dollar settlements in various sexual-abuse cases.

Many of the targeted parishes have protested the decision to close them down, resorting to picketing, letters to the archbishop, and appeals to canon law.

One does not wish to minimize in any way the negative effects of such parish closings on those who have been life-long parishioners, along with their parents and even grandparents, nor on the priests who will be forced to seek other pastoral assignments or perhaps to retire.

However, the heaviest burden will fall immediately upon the hundreds of salaried and wage-earning lay employees who will lose their jobs because of these parish closings. Among them are directors of religious education, liturgical directors, coordinators of one or another parish ministries, secretaries, maintenance personnel, and so many other non-volunteer staff members.

To their credit, several pastors have expressed serious concern about their lay employees and a determination to protect their status within the archdiocese. At this point, no one really knows how many lay employees will find comparable jobs in neighboring parishes and how many will be forced out of church work entirely or into lower-paying and less satisfying positions within the ecclesiastical system.

While Boston may be an unusual case as of now, the demographic and other trends that exist in that archdiocese are also evident, to one degree or another, in many other dioceses. Like the sexual-abuse scandal itself, the crisis was never confined to Boston, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. It is national and even international in scope.

Add to this the growing trend to punish lay employees for changes in their marital status or for voicing opinions at odds with the most conservative interpretations of church teachings and pastoral policies.

Last year at this time, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued their own annual Labor Day statement. It was on the plight of farmworkers and their families (Origins, Oct. 4, 2003). With only minor variations in wording (given below in italics), the statement could have applied just as well to the many thousands of the church's own lay employees.

"We call upon our church to develop policies that reflect a fundamental respect for the dignity and rights of its own lay employees. At a minimum, we must ensure that our lay employees earn a decent wage for themselves and their families and work in conditions that are secure and humane....

"Work is more than a way to make a living....Catholic teaching on the dignity of work calls us to engage in productive work and supports the right to decent and fair wages, health care and time off. Workers, including our own lay employees, have a right to organize to protect these rights and to have a voice in the workplace....

"This Labor Day, as we reflect on work and workers in our church, let us renew our commitment to stand in solidarity with our lay employees in defending their...dignity and helping them to secure decent wages, secure working conditions and better labor protections...

"The plight of the church's lay employees may not be on the evening news or in the headlines, but it should be at the heart of our thoughts, reflections and priorities as we celebrate Labor Day this year."

Perhaps one of these years, the bishops will issue a Labor Day statement that unequivocally reaffirms a key point in their pastoral letter of 1986, namely, their italicized declaration that Catholic social teachings apply to the church itself ("Economic Justice For All," Origins, Nov. 27, 1986, p. 446).

Such a Labor Day statement might even include a pledge to stop using the First Amendment as a shield against lawsuits by aggrieved lay employees. It only compounds the original injustice.

Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.