Gattamelata: “let us have the courage to change our viewpoint”
May 8, 2014: “THE GOOD SOCIETY AND THE FUTURE OF JOBS” Can solidarity and fraternity
be part of business decisions? Is the theme of a 3-day meeting that began on Thursday
in the Vatican. The initiative is organized by the Vatican’s Foundation Centesimus
Annus – Pro Pontifice, that aims to study and implement the social teachings of the
Church. “At this difficult time, when more and more people and families lose their
jobs, generating new social inequalities, we need a perspective that opens a new
horizon of reality,” said the Foundation secretary Massimo Gattamelata at the inauguration
of the conference. “This new horizon can be represented by three elements: creativity,
community love and practical sense,” he said. Pope Francis, in the speech addressed
to the Foundation on May 25th, 2013, had underlined that: “We have forgotten and
are still forgetting that over and above business, logic and the parameters of the
market there is the human being and there is something that is due to men and women
in as much as they are human beings by virtue of their profound dignity: the possibility
of living a dignified life and of actively participating in the common good. Benedict
XVI had reminded that precisely because it is human all human activity, including
economic activity, must be ethically structured and governed (cf. Encyclical Letter
Caritas in Veritate, n. 36). These are important thoughts – continues the Secretary
General – which prompt them to acknowledge that work can no longer be considered
an end to itself, a mere marketable good but should look at it as an instrument of
participation in God’s creative work.