Catholic Social Teaching and the Gig Economy: Engaging Labour Law and the Desert Fathers

Catholic Social Teaching has not only consistently emphasised the dignity of work, it has also tirelessly defended the intrinsic value of the worker. In Rerum novarum (1891), Pope Leo XIII admonished wealthy owners and employers ‘not to look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but to respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character’.