Vatican City, 25 May 2013: The current economic and social crisis adds urgency to
this "rethink" and underlines even more the truth and relevance of the social teaching
of the Church, said Pope Francis while addressing the members of the Centesimus Annus
Foundation in the Clementine Hall in the Vatican on Saturday, at the end of the International
Conference of the foundation on the theme "Rethinking solidarity for use: the challenges
of the twenty-first century. Citing the encyclical ‘Laborem exercens’, Pope Francis
said that unemployment and job loss are a phenomenon that is spreading like wildfire
in large areas of the West and that is spreading poverty at an alarming rates.
The
Foundation Centesimus Annus was established by Blessed John Paul II twenty years ago,
and bears the name of the encyclical that he signed at the centenary of Rerum Novarum.
Its sphere of reflection and action is therefore of the Social Doctrine of the Church,
to which the Popes of the last century have contributed in many ways and Pope Benedict
XVI, in particular with the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate, recalled Pope Francis.
The
Pontiff thanked the efforts of the Foundation in deepening and spreading the knowledge
of the Social Doctrine, with its courses and publications. Reflecting on the theme
of their conference, Pope Francis said that solidarity is a core value of the Social
Doctrine, as reminded by Blessed John Paul II. According to Pope Francis "rethink"
means two things: first, combine the teaching with the socio-economic development,
which always presents new aspects, and secondly, to "rethink" means to deepen, reflect
further, to emerge all the fruitfulness of a value - solidarity, in this case - that
draws deeply from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which contains inexhaustible potential.
The
Pontiff reiterated that there is nothing worse than material poverty, which makes
impossible to earn a living and deprives the dignity of labor. Something is drastically
wrong in the entire planet. Hence the need to "rethink solidarity" is no longer as
simple assistance to the poor, but as a global rethinking of the whole system, such
as finding ways to reform it and correct it in a manner consistent with fundamental
human rights of all men. The current crisis, explained the Pontiff, is not only
economic and financial but is rooted in an anthropological and ethical crisis. Following
the idols of power, profit, money, over and above the value of the human person, has
become a basic rule of operation and decisive criterion of organization. And it often
forget that above the business logic and parameters of the market, there is a human
being and there is something that is due to man as man, by virtue of his profound
dignity: to offer the opportunity to live with dignity and participate actively in
the common good. Benedict XVI reminded us that every human activity, including
the economic one, just because it is human, it must be structured and governed in
an ethical manner. We must return to the centrality of man, to a more ethical activities
and human relationships, without the fear of losing something, concluded the Pope. Source:
VR Sedoc