• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Pope Francis greets participants in a Vatican consultation, titled "Care is Work, Work is Care," as he arrives for a meeting at the Vatican May 8, 2024. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Despite economic interests, society must embrace social justice, pope says

May 8, 2024
By Justin McLellan
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: News, Social Justice, Vatican, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While the forces of a market economy may obstruct people from advancing social justice, society cannot remain mute in the face of unjust labor practices and exploitative economic structures, Pope Francis said.

Modern society runs the risk of “passively accepting what happens around us with a certain indifference or because we are not in a condition to understand often complex problems and find adequate responses to them,” he said May 8.

The pope encouraged academics, employers, workers’ organizations, and faith-based actors participating in a Vatican consultation on developing fair labor practices to “focus on the relationship between dignified work and social justice.”

“This expression, ‘social justice,’ that came about in the social encyclicals of the popes, is a word that is not accepted by the liberal, leading economy,” he said.

Organized by “The Future of Work, Labor after Laudato Si’” project, the International Catholic Migration Commission and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the three-day consultation brought 60 participants to Rome from around the world to discuss the dignity of work, environmental transition, migration and social justice.

In his address opening the consultation May 8, Cardinal Michael Czerny, dicastery prefect, urged participants to adopt a “synodal” approach to their discussions, which could see “unlikely allies emerge” united behind the common good.

Pope Francis told the participants that working conditions must be considered in light of the environmental impact of labor, noting in particular how extractive industries export raw materials “for the sole purpose of satisfying the markets of the industrialized North” but often produce dangerous working conditions, “including mercury or sulfur dioxide pollution in mines.”

The pope also addressed the problem of global food scarcity, especially in regions affected by war such as Gaza and Sudan, which he said is caused by extreme weather linked to climate change and acerbated by “structural weaknesses such as poverty, high dependence on food imports and precarious infrastructure.”

He added that society cannot forget about the relationship of dignified work and migration.

Due to “prejudice and inaccurate or ideological information,” he said, migrants “are often viewed as a problem and a burden on a nation’s costs, when in reality, by working, they contribute to the economic and social development of the country that receives them and the one they come from” by sending money back to their families.

Migration also helps wealthy nations handle the “very grave problem” caused by falling fertility rates, the pope said, but often migrants remain excluded from their full rights in those countries, including by having no access to healthcare, financial protections and social services.

Read More Social Justice

Trump federalizes DC police force, says homeless encampments will be removed

‘Rerum Novarum’ 2.0? Catholic labor advocates heartened by Pope Leo’s direction

Catholic ‘American Ninja Warrior’ fights world hunger, one obstacle at a time

Holy See at the UN urges sustainable development as U.S. pulls out of UNESCO

Caring for others, serving life is the ‘supreme law,’ pope says

US bishops’ conference calls for ‘drastic changes’ in Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Copyright © 2024 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Justin McLellan

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • The ‘both/and’ pope

  • Patrick Brice sentenced to home detention for attacks on elderly pro-life supporters

  • Statue of Confederate general known as anti-Catholic to be reinstalled in nation’s capital

  • Movie Review: ‘The Naked Gun’

  • Gun buyback exceeds expectations, previous totals

| Latest Local News |

Gun buyback exceeds expectations, previous totals

Radio Interview: The situation in Gaza with Catholic Near East Welfare Association

Patrick Brice sentenced to home detention for attacks on elderly pro-life supporters

Notre Dame of Maryland University joins with Milwaukee college to address teacher shortage

Sister Agnese Neumann dies at 95

| Latest World News |

For Gazans, the deep silence of hunger has replaced noise of daily life

Hope is knowing God is always ready to forgive, pope says at audience

Report: Christian church attacks down, but recent totals still higher than 2018-2022

Petition filed at Supreme Court seeks overturn of landmark same-sex marriage ruling

Head of Spanish political party criticizes Catholic Church’s defense of Muslim community

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • For Gazans, the deep silence of hunger has replaced noise of daily life
  • Hope is knowing God is always ready to forgive, pope says at audience
  • Images of Mary: Can we find the Blessed Mother in the Old Testament?
  • Report: Christian church attacks down, but recent totals still higher than 2018-2022
  • How public opinion can influence migration policies
  • Home viewing roundup: What’s available to stream and what’s on horizon
  • Petition filed at Supreme Court seeks overturn of landmark same-sex marriage ruling
  • Head of Spanish political party criticizes Catholic Church’s defense of Muslim community
  • At 80th anniversary Mass in Nagasaki, people urged to bring Christ’s love, peace to world

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en