Here and Now with Francis 1/21/16 (employment, dignity, work, personhood, responsibility, unity, baptism, Christianity)
From the letter to the World Economic Forum
The dawn of the so-called “fourth industrial revolution” has been accompanied by a growing sense of the inevitability of a drastic reduction in the number of jobs.
Diminished opportunities for useful and dignified employment, combined with a reduction in social security, are causing a disturbing rise in inequality and poverty in different countries. Clearly there is a need to create new models of doing business which, while promoting the development of advanced technologies, are also capable of using them to create dignified work for all, to uphold and consolidate social rights, and to protect the environment. Man must guide technological development, without letting himself be dominated by it! To all of you I appeal once more: “Do not forget the poor!” This is the primary challenge before you as leaders in the business world. [...]
We must never allow the culture of prosperity to deaden us, to make us incapable of “feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and sensing the need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own” (Evangelii Gaudium, 54). [...]
Do not be afraid to open your minds and hearts to the poor. In this way, you will give free rein to your economic and technical talents, and discover the happiness of a full life, which consumerism of itself cannot provide. In the face of profound and epochal changes, world leaders are challenged to ensure that the coming “fourth industrial revolution”, the result of robotics and scientific and technological innovations, does not lead to the destruction of the human person – to be replaced by a soulless machine – or to the transformation of our planet into an empty garden for the enjoyment of a chosen few. [full text]
From the audience
The First Letter of Peter is addressed to the first generation of Christians, to make them aware of the gift received in Baptism and of the demands that it entails.
In this Week of Prayer, we are also invited to rediscover all this, and to do so together, going beyond our divisions. First of all, to share in Baptism, means that we are all sinners and are in need of being saved, redeemed, liberated from evil. This is the negative aspect, which the First Letter of Peter calls “darkness” when he says, “[God] has called you out of darkness to lead you into His marvelous light.” This is the experience of death, which Christ made His own, and which is symbolized in Baptism. We affirm that all of us — Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox — share the experience of being called from the merciless and alienating darkness to the encounter with the living God, full of mercy. All of us, unfortunately, experience egoism, which generates division, closure and contempt. To begin again from Baptism means to rediscover the font of mercy, font of hope for all, because no one is excluded from God’s mercy. [full text]
