Work is a Vocation - Means of Sanctification: Cardinal Bertone

Sept 02, 2011: Work is more than just a job or a career but above all a "vocation", said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican’s Secretary of State. He was addressing the Meeting of the National Study of Christian Associations of Italian Workers (ACLI) on Friday at Castel Gandolfo.

Work experience as a vocation, is the ordinary means of sanctification, because it is lived as a secular and practical implementation of the will of God. It is a Community dimension of holiness, lived not only in monasteries and convents, but also in communities of women and men at work, he added.

The bishops of the whole world, in communion with the Pope, transmit the "Gospel of work" to their people, and not just in words, but with a pastoral presence ensured by priests, religious and lay faithful who translate this teaching into action. In the five continents the Church's teaching on work is read primarily through the signs of solidarity and promotion initiatives, Cardinal Bertone said.

Referring to the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate, the Cardinal said that it reflected the same complexity of the situation in which we live. The Holy Father designed it at the 40th anniversary of Populorum Progressio by the Servant of God Paul VI. But the onset of the global economic crisis required a revision during construction. This very fact is very important because the Pope had asked the significance of this crisis, wanted to give a reading from a theological and moral, that is, precisely, in view of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

The aspects of the crisis and its solutions and a new possible development, are increasingly interconnected. They require new efforts of holistic understanding and a new synthesis ... The humanities crisis becomes an opportunity for discernment and new strategic planning.

The profound transformation that involves the world of work really does not affect only the objective aspects, ie: organization, employment or unemployment, pay, flexibility, job insecurity, etc.. But significantly affects its content and ethical ideals.
Talking about the "logic" of the gift and gratuity, he said according to Pope Benedict XVI they have to find their place within normal economic activity, and that the principle of gratuity and the logic of the gift as an expression of brotherhood.

Referring to the teachings of the church, he said work is more than just a job or a career but also and above all a "vocation". The Church's social doctrine takes this theological dimension of the work and asserts that human work contributes, in some mysterious but real way, the new creation, the new heavens and new earth, he added.