To the Workers in Sao Paulo (3 July 1980)

On Thursday, 3 July 1980, the Holy Father addressed the workers in São Paulo, Brazil, to whom he spoke of the Church's mission under two perspectives: “the eschatological perspective which considers man as a being whose future destiny is God; and the historical perspective that looks at this same man in his concrete situation, embodied in today's world.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

1. I feel very happy and honored to be among you today in São Paulo. Happy to discover your city, this immense metropolis subject to incredible industrial development, in which an extraordinary productive growth goes hand in hand with rapid urbanization, fascinating and worrying at the same time. Happy mainly because I discover the city through people, through you, men and women, who work, suffer and hope here. You have come here from all corners of this immense country and the whole world. You have come to earn your living and to collaborate in this great common work vital to the whole nation: the building of a city worthy of man! Yes, because São Paulo is you! São Paulo is not above all these material achievements, not even always oriented according to a just and full evaluation of man and society and not even always capable of organizing an environment where one can lead a life worthy of man. São Paulo is also the numerous marginalized, the unemployed, the under-employed, the poorly employed who find no where to commit their arms and where to develop the generous resources of their intelligence and their hearts. São Paulo is you, gathered here to celebrate your dignity as workers and to manifest your willingness to build together a city tailored to its human hopes. São Paulo you are gathered here to seek in the Gospel of Jesus Christ the light and energy necessary to carry out the task that awaits you: to transform São Paulo into a fully human city.

2. Yes, who brings us together here is Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe and of history. In his name the Pope visits you today. Workers, my brothers and sisters, I thank God for allowing me to be among you. And I thank you too for the joy that this meeting brings to this minister of Christ who in his youth, in his native Poland, experienced first-hand the condition of a manual worker, with the greatness and hardness, the happy hours and moments of anguish , the realizations and frustrations that this condition entails. From the bottom of my heart I tell you that Saint Paul said to the Romans: "I have a strong desire to see you in order to communicate to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be strengthened by it, or rather, to strengthen myself with you and among you through the faith we have in common, you and I" (Rom 1:11-12).

The Christian feast of joy is not a luxury reserved for the rich. Everyone is invited to take part.

Last year the marginalized of another great metropolis, New York, sang with me the "hallelujah" of the resurrection. And only recently immense Africa, the Africa of poverty, gave the Pope and the world the spectacle of an unforgettable celebration. And this celebration comes from the belief that we are loved by God and that God is with us. God visits us! The kingdom of God is in our midst! Here is the inexhaustible source of our joy: knowing that God loves us and recognizes us, knowing that we are free from sin, knowing that we have been raised to the unsurpassable dignity of children of God, rich in faith, hope and love that the Holy Spirit spreads in our hearts.

Let us therefore celebrate our God and our Father, Jesus Christ our Lord and our brother, the Holy Spirit who gathers us! The option for the poorest, in which the assembly of Bishops in Puebla wanted to commit the Church in Latin America, is essentially this: that the poor be evangelized, that the Church once again redouble all her energies so that Jesus Christ let it be announced to all, especially the poor, and that all have access to this living source, to the table of the word and of bread, to the sacraments, to the baptized community. This is all the meaning of our communion today, of our Christian feast. We will leave here for our task as citizens and workers with a new enthusiasm; with a clearer awareness of our dignity, our rights, our responsibilities,

3. I speak to you in the name of Christ, in the name of the Church, of the whole Church. It is Christ who sends his Church to all men and all societies with a message of salvation. This mission of the Church is fulfilled at the same time under two perspectives: the eschatological perspective which considers man as a being whose future destiny is God; and the historical perspective that looks at this same man in his concrete situation, embodied in today's world.

This message of salvation that the Church, by virtue of her mission, brings to every man and also to the family, to different social spheres, to nations and to all humanity is a message of love and fraternity, a message of justice and solidarity primarily for the most needy. In a word: it is a message of peace and a just social order.

I want to repeat here, before you, what I said to the workers in Saint-Denis, a working-class district of another large city, Paris: starting from the profound words of the "magnificat" I wanted to consider with them that "the world willed by God it is a world of justice; that the order which must guide relations between men is based on justice; that this order must be continuously established in the world, always anew, to the extent that social situations and systems increase and develop, to the extent that new economic conditions and possibilities arise, new possibilities of technology and production, and at the same time time new possibilities and needs for the distribution of goods" (John Paul II, Homilia in "Saint-Denis" habita , 5, die 31 mai 1980:Teachings of John Paul II , III,1 [1980] 1569).

The Church, when she proclaims the Gospel, without however abandoning her specific task of evangelization, seeks to obtain that all the aspects of social life in which injustice is manifested undergo a transformation towards justice. The common good of society requires as a fundamental requirement that society be just! The persistence of injustice, the lack of justice threatens the existence of society from within, in the same way that everything that attacks its sovereignty or tries to impose ideologies and models on it, every economic and political blackmail, every force of arms he can threaten her from the outside.

This threat that comes from within actually exists when, in the context of the distribution of goods, we rely solely on the economic laws of growth and greater profit; when the results of progress touch only marginally, or do not touch at all, the vast social strata of the population; it exists even while a deep abyss persists between a very strong minority of the rich on the one hand and the majority of those who live in need and misery on the other.

4. The common good of society, which will always be the new name of justice, cannot be achieved through violence, because it destroys what it intends to create, both when it seeks to maintain the privileges of some, and when it tries to impose necessary transformations. The changes required by a just social order must be effected by constant action - often gradual and progressive but always effective - on the road to peaceful reform.

This is everyone's duty. This is especially the duty of those who hold power in society, whether it be economic or political power. Every power finds its justification solely in the common good, in the creation of a just social order. Consequently, power should never serve to protect the interests of one group at the expense of others. In turn, class struggle is not the road that leads to social order, because it carries with it the risk of reversing the conditions of the contenders, creating new situations of justice. Nothing is built on a foundation of lack of love and still less on a foundation of hatred that aims at the destruction of others.

Rejecting the class struggle is also resolutely opting for a noble struggle in favor of social justice. The various centers of power and the various representatives of society must be able to unite, coordinate their efforts and reach agreement on clear and effective programmes. This is the Christian formula for creating a just society! The whole of society must be in solidarity with all men and, in the first place, with the man who most needs help, the poor. The option for the poor is a Christian option; it is also the option of the society that cares about the true common good.

5. Let us listen to what Christ himself tells us about this, when he addresses the crowds who have come from every region and from across borders to see him. Sitting among his disciples, Jesus began his instruction with these words: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:3). Beyond his listeners, it is also to us, gathered here in São Paulo, Brazil, that he addressed these words. Twenty centuries of history have taken away none of the pressing importance, gravity and hope contained in these words of the Lord. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”!

These words are valid for each of us. This invitation cries out within each of us.

To acquire the spirit of the poor: this is what Christ asks of everyone.

Those who are financially well off must acquire the spirit of the poor, they must open their hearts to the poor, because if they don't do it, unjust situations will not change; it will be able to change the political structure or the social system; but without change of heart and conscience the just and stable social order will not be achieved. On the other hand, those who are not financially well off, those who find themselves in need, must also acquire the "spirit of the poor", not allowing material poverty to deprive them of their human dignity, because this dignity is more important than all goods.

It is in this context that the Christian doctrine on man, nourished by the Gospel, the Bible and centuries of experience, values ​​human work in a unique way. The dignity of work. The nobility of work. You know the dignity and nobility of your work, you who work to live, to live better, to earn bread for your families, your daily bread, you who feel wounded in your affection as fathers and mothers at to see your children undernourished, you who are so happy and proud when you can offer them a plentiful table, when you can dress them well, give them a decent and welcoming home, provide them with a school and an education with a view to a better future.

Work is a service, a service to your families and to the whole city, a service in which man himself grows to the extent that he gives himself for others. Work is a discipline in which the personality is strengthened.

Your first and fundamental aspiration is, therefore, to work. How much suffering, how much anguish and misery does unemployment cause! This is why the first and fundamental concern of each and every one, government officials, politicians, union leaders and business owners must be this: to give work to everyone. Expect the solution of the problem as the more or less automatic result of an order and economic development, whatever they may be, in which employment appears as a secondary consequence. it is unrealistic and therefore not admissible. Economic theory and practice must have the courage to consider employment and its modern possibilities as a central element of their objectives.

6. Justice requires that working conditions be as dignified as possible, that social security be perfected so as to allow everyone, on the basis of growing solidarity, to face risks, hardships and social burdens. Adjusting the wage, in its different and complementary ways to the point where it can be said that the worker participates really and fairly in that wealth to whose creation he contributes jointly in the company, in the profession and in the national economy, is a legitimate need. On all these points the Church, especially starting from the first great social encyclical, the “ Rerum Novarum”, he did not get tired of developing a very rich teaching. I invite you, workers and political, professional and union leaders, to pay renewed attention to this teaching. No one will go to meet ready-made solutions there, but they will be able to see clarifications and stimuli for their own reflection and practice. The task is delicate, and this set of problems, in which all factors - employment, investment, wages - react on each other, must not be regulated either by means of demagoguery, or by ideological spells, or by a cold and scientism theoretician who, contrary to the true scientific spirit, left the rectification of his presuppositions for an uncertain future. I return to reaffirm here what I have already expressed with regard to employment: waiting for the wage solution, of social security and working conditions arises from a kind of automatic extension of an economic order is unrealistic and therefore itself inadmissible. The economy is valid only if it is human, made by man and for man.

7. For this reason it is very important that all the protagonists of economic life have the effective possibility of participating freely and actively in the elaboration and control of the decisions which concern them at all levels. Already Pope Leo XIII in " Rerum Novarum " had clearly affirmed the right of workers to gather in free associations with the aim of making their voice heard, defending their interests and contributing responsibly to the common good, whose needs and the discipline of which is imposed on everyone in the ambit of laws and contracts that can always be perfected.

The Church proclaims and supports these various workers' rights because man and his dignity are at stake. And he does it with deep and ardent conviction all the more so as for it the man who works becomes God's collaborator. Made in God's image, he received the mission to govern the universe to develop its riches and guarantee its universal destination, to to unite men in mutual service and in the common creation of a worthy and beautiful way of life, for the glory of the Creator.

Workers, never forget the great nobility which, as men and as Christians, you must impart to your work, even the most humble and insignificant. Never let work degrade you; rather try to fully live your true dignity that the word of God and the teaching of the Church highlight. In fact work makes you, first of all, collaborators with God in continuing the work of creation. May they carry forward - with the sweat of their brow, yes, but above all with just pride in being created in the image of God himself - the dynamism contained in the order given by God to the first man to populate the earth and dominate it (cf. Gen 1:28 ). Work associates you more closely with the redemption that Christ accomplished through the cross, when he leads you to accept all that is painful, heavy, of mortifying, of crucifying in the daily monotony: when he still invites you to unite your sufferings to those of the Savior "to complete what is lacking in Christ's sufferings, in favor of his body which is the Church" (Col 1:24). This is why your work ultimately leads you to feel in solidarity with all your brothers and sisters - here in Brazil and throughout the world -. It makes you builders of the great human family, even more, of the whole Church in the bond of charity, because each one is called to help the other (cf. Gal 6:2), in the ever-renewed need for mutual collaboration for which we men are necessary to each other, without excluding anyone. when he invites you again to unite your sufferings to those of the Savior "to complete what is lacking in Christ's sufferings, in favor of his body which is the Church" (Col 1:24). This is why your work ultimately leads you to feel in solidarity with all your brothers and sisters - here in Brazil and throughout the world -. It makes you builders of the great human family, even more, of the whole Church in the bond of charity, because each one is called to help the other (cf. Gal 6:2), in the ever-renewed need for mutual collaboration for which we men are necessary to each other, without excluding anyone. when he invites you again to unite your sufferings to those of the Savior "to complete what is lacking in Christ's sufferings, in favor of his body which is the Church" (Col 1:24). This is why your work ultimately leads you to feel in solidarity with all your brothers and sisters - here in Brazil and throughout the world -. It makes you builders of the great human family, even more, of the whole Church in the bond of charity, because each one is called to help the other (cf. Gal 6:2), in the ever-renewed need for mutual collaboration for which we men are necessary to each other, without excluding anyone.

This is the Christian conception of work; it starts from faith in God the Creator and, through Christ the Redeemer, arrives at the building up of human society, at solidarity with man. Without this vision, any effort, even the most tenacious, is lacking and ephemeral. It is bound to disappoint, to finish.

Build, therefore, upon this foundation. And if you were told that in order to defend the achievements of work it is necessary to set aside or even cancel this Christian vision of existence, don't believe it. Man without God and without Christ builds on sand. He betrays his origin and his nobility. And finally, he comes to harm the man, to offend his brother.

8. You work in the environment of a large city, which continues to grow rapidly. It is a reflection of the incredible possibilities of mankind, capable of admirable achievements, but also capable, when spiritual animation and moral orientation are lacking, of crushing man.

Many times, an exclusivist economic logic, further depraved by crass materialism, has invaded all fields of existence, compromising the environment, threatening families and destroying all respect for the human person. Factories throw their waste, deform and contaminate the environment, making the air unbreathable. Waves of immigrants pile up in unworthy hovels, where many lose hope and end up in misery. Children, young people, adolescents do not find vital spaces to fully develop their physical and spiritual energies, often confined to unhealthy environments or forced into streets where traffic flows, between concrete buildings and the anonymity of the crowd worn out without ever knowing each other. Alongside neighborhoods where you live with all modern comforts, there are others where the most basic things are missing, and some suburbs are growing disorderly. Many times the development turns into a gigantic version of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The proximity of luxury and poverty accentuates the feeling of frustration of the underprivileged. A fundamental question arises here: how to transform the city into a truly human city, in its natural environment, in its buildings and in its institutions?

An essential condition is to give the economy a human sense and logic. What was said about work applies here. It is necessary to liberate the different fields of existence from the dominion of a subjugating economism. It is necessary to put economic needs in their rightful place and create a multifaceted social fabric which prevents massification. No one is exempt from collaborating in this task. Everyone can do something in themselves and around them. Isn't it true that the most deprived neighborhoods are often the place where solidarity arouses gestures of greater disinterest and generosity? Christians, wherever you are, assume your share of responsibility in this immense effort for the human restructuring of the city. Your faith makes it your duty. Faith and experience, together,

9. Christians have the right and the duty to contribute to the extent of their ability to build up society. And they do it through the associative and institutional frameworks that the free society develops with the participation of all. The Church as such does not claim to administer the city or to occupy the place of the legitimate organs of deliberation and action. You only want to serve all those who, at whatever level, assume responsibilities for the common good. Her service is essentially of an ethical and religious order. But in order to guarantee this service, in accordance with her mission, the Church fully demands an indispensable space of freedom and seeks to maintain her religious specificity.

Thus, all Christian communities, both basic communities such as parishes, dioceses or the entire national community, must make their specific contribution to building a just society.

All human concerns must be taken into consideration, since evangelization, the raison d'être of any ecclesial community, would not be complete if it did not take into account the relationships existing between the Gospel message and the personal and social life of man between the commandment to love one's neighbor who suffers and is in need and the concrete situations of injustice to be fought and justice and peace to be established.

May you from our meeting today, around Jesus Christ, bring with you the certainty that the Church wants to be present, with all her evangelical message, in the heart of the city, in the heart of the poorest populations of the city, in the heart of each of you. You are loved by God, workers of São Paulo and Brazil. And you must love God. This is the secret of your joy, of a joy which, springing from your hearts, will radiate on your faces and on the face of the city as a sign that it is a human city.

Copyright © Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Publishing House