Scottish Catholic Observer

Pope Francis has said employment must not be held hostage to the logic of profit or a ‘deified’ market as he stressed the value and sacredness of work.

He said that work is part of God’s plan but that when it is separated from God’s covenant it contaminates the soul.

Work is sacred he said, and management of employment is a great responsibility that can’t be left in the hands of a few or a ‘deified’ market. A highly productive ‘smart city’ can be good for services and organisations, he said, but is often hostile to children and the elderly.

The Pope, speaking in the Pope Paul VI Hall during his weekly general audience, told pilgrims that he feels sad when he sees people without jobs and who do not have the dignity of work and said that job losses cause ‘great social harm.’

He spoke about the work of Jesus as a carpenter, and of God in creating the Earth, and mentioned the message of his encyclical Laudato Si’ that ‘the beauty of the land and the dignity of work are meant to be together.’

The Holy Father stressed also that work must not take precedence over the family.

“The modern organisation of work often shows a dangerous tendency to consider the family a weight, a passive obstacle to productivity,” he said. “But let us ask ourselves: What kind of productivity? For whom?”

And he compared the challenges facing the family to the story of David and Goliath, pointing out that we know how that challenge ended up.

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