World needs artisans, small businesses to promote common good, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Artisans, tradespersons and craftspersons make the world more beautiful and are collaborators in God’s creativity and desire for peace, Pope Francis said.

“We need your talent to restore meaning to human activity and to place it at the service of projects to promote the common good,” he said during an audience at the Vatican Nov. 15 with members of Italy’s National Confederation of Craft Trades and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises.

The pope praised their work because it “makes the world beautiful. We live in times of war and of violence. The news is like this everywhere, and this seems to make us lose trust in the capacities of the human being.”

But their work is a source of consolation and hope, he said, because “to beautify the world is to build peace.”

To earn a lot of money today, “you must invest in killing” since investments with the highest revenue today are in weapons manufacturing, which “does not make the world beautiful; it is ugly,” the pope said.

But God calls all men and women to be like artisans and work on building up his project of peace, the pope said. “That is why he distributes his talents in abundance, so that, unlike the wars fomented by the enemy of God, they may be placed at the service of life and not buried in the barrenness of death and destruction.”

“Craftsmanship is very dear to me because it expresses well the value of human work,” the pope said, and it is “a tribute to creativity,” making artisans “collaborators in the creative work of God.”

“It is not the quantity that counts, but the effort” of making sure the gifts and talents one has received from God bear fruit, he said.

“If you are passionate about your work, and sometimes rightly complain that it is not adequately recognized, it is because you are aware of the value of what God has placed in your hands, not only for you but for everyone,” Pope Francis said.

“We all need to set aside the fear that paralyzes and destroys creativity,” he said. “We are part of a great project of God, who is capable of surprising us with his gifts” and with his guidance as he “takes us by the hand and leads us.”