Catholics should fight for universal parental leave.

"And what kind of a maternity policy does your company have for pregnancy and child-birth?" a woman in the human-resources department of a Catholic organization in Ohio was asked. The woman didn't hesitate; her answer was short and to the point: "We don't have any. We don't encourage that sort of thing."

Sadly, her answer is true not only for her organization but also, in a broader sense, for U.S. society as a whole - "We don't encourage that sort of thing."

A few years ago, when the International Labor Organization studied maternity policies in 118 countries, the U.S. was the only country that lacked nationally legislated provisions for leave for pregnancy and childbirth. Since then, with the passage two years ago of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a very modest first step has finally been taken. Accompanied by much whining and handwringing and dire warnings from business leaders, the United States' first parental-leave mandate became law in August 1993 - 115 years after the first maternity-leave law was introduced in Europe.

Now, companies that have more than 50 employees must grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-guaranteed leave to care for a newly born or adopted child, a sick family member, or a serious health condition of their own. Overcoming the hyper-allergic American opposition to "imposing government mandates" on businesses, the FMLA marked an important milestone: it established for the first time a national interest in more family-friendly workplace policies.

The U.S. Catholic bishops, who had lobbied for years for a family- and medical-leave law, welcomed the FMLA as "a modest first step ... in shaping our society with a clear priority for families and children." It can only be hoped that this really is a first step that will be followed by more. As the bishops pointed out in their 1986 pastoral letter, "Economic Justice for All," the "lack of a mutually supportive relation between family life and economic life is one of the most serious problems facing the United States today. The economic and cultural strength of the nation is directly linked to the stability and health of its families."

Indeed, creating more family-friendly workplace policies - and especially guaranteeing the care and presence of at least one parent during the crucial first months of a new baby's life - is not granting "special favors," as some critics charge; it benefits businesses and society as a whole.

Official Catholic documents of social teaching have repeatedly emphasized the responsibility of both the business world and public policy to "work efficiently for the welfare of marriage and family" (Gaudium et spes) and, more specifically, to "ensure and promote ... family-friendly workplace arrangements" ("Putting Children and Families First").

The church insists that "economic and social policies as well as the organization of work should be continually evaluated in light of their impact on the strength and stability of family life" ("Economic Justice for All"), particularly the needs of children.

But why should businesses that until recently never had to pay much attention to their employees' family needs, suddenly change their ways and create new family-friendly perks for their employees?

As corporations that have instituted such policies readily attest, it pays to do so. The payback in making the company more attractive to potential new employees and in preventing costly turnover and training far outweighs the costs and inconveniences involved. For example, a few years ago when Aetna instituted a six-month parental-leave policy, the company reported that the number of working mothers who didn't return from maternity leave had been cut by more than 50 percent. Corning reported that after establishing several new family-friendly policies there, the turnover rate for all employees dropped by half.

While these are clear bottom-line benefits for employers, perhaps even more important is the impact on employee morale that comes with the peace of mind for working parents who are better able to balance the needs of their families with the demands of their work. Getting help with or some accommodations for that balancing act is an increasing priority for workers today. According to one recent survey, nearly 80 percent of American women and men prefer a job that gives them adequate time for their families, even if it means slower career advancement. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of mothers in the workplace rose from 17.8 to 22.2 million, which include 75 percent (up from 56.6 percent) of all women with children ages 6 to 13 and 54.5 percent with children under 3.

Although companies have been even slower to accommodate fathers in their family and parenting concerns, there is, as the Wall Street Journal notes, "plenty of evidence that men are pained over conflicts between parenting and work." An increasing number of working fathers are seeking more flexible work arrangements that allow them to be more involved with their children than their fathers were.

There are some hopeful signs. The public discussion of the need for more family-friendly business practices and policies has picked up substantially in recent years, and a growing number of corporations have begun to create and experiment with new policies and benefits, such as more flexible work schedules, job sharing, on-site child-care facilities, and paid parental-leave policies that go beyond the minimum standards of the FMLA.

But positive as these developments may be, one need only look at parental-leave policies in other major industrialized nations to recognize how woefully inadequate American arrangements still are. The FMLA-mandated leave, fiercely resisted by a large sector of U.S. business and twice vetoed by President Bush, still lags far behind parental-leave provisions in all other major industrialized economies. Not only is FMLA leave entirely unpaid and the 12-week-leave period shorter than in the other advanced economies but the law also covers less than two fifths of the U.S. workforce because it is limited to companies with more than 50 employees.

Compare that to Sweden, where parents get a combined 15 months of paid parental leave to divide between them, with 360 days paid by the government at 90 percent of their previous salary (up to a certain income level) and the remaining 90 days paid at $8 a day.

In Germany, mothers-to-be receive 100 percent paid leave beginning six weeks prior to their due dates and ending eight weeks after delivery. After that, either parent can get a child-raising allowance of $430 a month (plus the additional "child money" paid for all children) until the child is 2 years old. Job-guaranteed child-raising leave can be taken for up to three years. Italy provides maternity leave at 80 percent earnings for two months prior to the due date and three months after the birth. Denmark offers 18 weeks maternity (4 weeks prenatal and 14 post-natal) and 10 days of paternity leave, which is then followed by a 10-week parental leave to be divided or shared between mother and father.

Why have European countries instituted such policies? According to Ellen Galinsky, co-president of the Families and Work Institute in New York, "In Europe, there is an assumption by the people that the larger society has a responsibility in terms of families, which we in the United States still debate. It is not that Europeans think the federal or state governments or companies should raise children and tell families what to do, but they believe that there is a larger social good that is achieved if parents have some wage replacement if they are on leave or have decent child-care options to choose among."

But if you're still tempted to dismiss such policies as big, bad, failed socialist government (25 years ago Republicans defeated a child-care bill with the charge that it would lead to the "sovietization of American children"), you might want to read Money magazine, not exactly a hotbed of crusading communists. It proclaimed Sweden's parental-leave policy one of "the world's five best ideas" and urged U.S. businesses and lawmakers to modify it for use in the U.S.

So what could an adequate parental-leave policy for the United States look like? Recognizing that the U.S. is not and never will be Sweden, we will, unfortunately, never adopt policies as generous as theirs - in fact, in their own rounds of budget crises and welfare reform, the Swedes are debating some small cuts in those benefits. It is also clear that instituting a decent, nationally mandated leave policy would have to be achieved piecemeal over several years.

In my view, a positive and feasible national parental-leave policy for the U.S. could consist of a universal, paid benefit for six months with an additional job-protected unpaid leave period for the remainder of one whole year. Because the loving, full-time presence of a parent is more crucial for younger babies, and because lower-income parents cannot afford substantial wage loss to the degree employees with higher incomes can, I would propose sliding scales of wage replacements, both for the duration of the six-month paid period and for various household income levels. For example, lower-income parents might be given a two-month, 100 percent paid leave, dropping to 80 percent for the next two months and 60 percent for the remaining period. This could be scaled back to an 80-60-40 percent model for middle-income households and capped at a certain dollar amount for the upper-income bracket.

To discourage discrimination against women in the workplace and to encourage trends toward a more equitable division of child-rearing responsibilities between fathers and mothers, arrangements could promote parental leave for fathers. This could be done through built-in incentives for both parents to take turns with the primary family responsibilities. As is the case in Sweden, parents could receive wage replacement for a longer leave period if, say, first the mother takes her leave and then the father his leave.

How could we possibly pay for such benefits? Obviously, the other major industrialized countries have found ways to pay for theirs. The most common models in Europe are payroll taxes, social-insurance or disability-insurance funds, general tax revenues, or combinations of these.

Until we can get to this point (and that may take a while) I would love to see Catholics in all areas of responsibility - business and union leaders, politicians, journalists, theologians, and church leaders - take the lead in promoting and implementing workplace arrangements that reflect the profamily, prolife values we profess to believe in. Up until now, one would be hard-pressed to recognize any such Catholic leadership out in the "real world." If anything, when it comes to family-friendly workplace policies, many Catholic organizations appear to be behind rather than ahead of the curve. The challenge has been laid out clearly by the U.S. Catholic bishops themselves. In their 1991 pastoral letter "Putting Children and Families First," they write: "In our own structures and institutions, we need to move toward personnel policies that more fully reflect our commitment to family life."

I'd love to see the day when that becomes more than just a rhetorical phrase and that challenge is answered, among other efforts, by Catholic organizations instituting family-friendly workplace policies that blaze the trail for the rest of society. How much more credible would Catholic prolife and profamily advocacy be!

Then maybe, just maybe, callers inquiring about parental-leave policies at Catholic organizations would get the answer, "We're proud to say that we're really encouraging that sort of thing."

Meinrad Scherer-Emunds, assistant editor for Salt of the Earth magazine in Chicago, Illinois.