Stable employment and the family are ‘2 pillars’ of society, Pope tells Italy’s president

June 12, 2017

Pope Francis paid an official visit to Italian President Sergio Mattarella on June 10 and praised Church-state collaboration in service of the common good.

Italy’s generosity toward migrants and refugees, as well as towards earthquake victims, is an expression “of the sentiments and attitudes which find their most genuine source in the Christian faith, which has shaped the character of Italians, and shines the most in dramatic moments,” the Pope said.

“With regard to the vast and complex migratory phenomenon, it is clear that the full burden cannot be faced by a few nations, ensuring an orderly integration of new arrivals in their own social fabric,” he continued. “For this reason, it is essential and urgent that extensive and incisive international cooperation be developed.”

Turning to the subject of youth unemployment—the unemployment rate for young adults is 34%—the Pontiff emphasized the link between stable work and family life.

“Juvenile hardship, pockets of poverty, the difficulties that the young encounter in forming a family and in raising children find a common denominator in the insufficiency of available work, often so precarious or poorly paid that it does not enable serious planning,” he said, adding:

It is necessary for there to be an alliance of synergies and initiatives so that financial resources be placed at the service of this aim, with its broad reach and social value, and so that there are not instead distorted and dispersed in investments of a prevalently speculative nature, which indicate the lack of long-term planning, insufficient consideration of the true role of business and, ultimately, weakness and the instinct to flee from the challenges of our time.

Stable employment, along with a policy actively committed to favoring the family, the first and primary place in which the person-in-relations is formed, are the condition for authentic sustainable development and harmonious growth of society. They are two pillars that give support to the common home and which strengthen it to face the future with a spirit that is not resigned or fearful, but creative and confident.

 

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Further information:

• 2017.06.10 Visit to the President of the Italian Republic (YouTube Vatican)
• Official visit of the Holy Father to the President of the Italian Republic, His Excellency Mr. Sergio Mattarella, 10.06.2017 (Holy See Press Office)