The Pope emphasized the importance of employment, stability, and dignity.

At his Saturday Jubilee Audience, Pope Leo XIV extended a warm welcome to the participants in the Jubilee of the World of Work, gathered among the 45,000 faithful present in St Peter's Square.

In his greetings to Italian speakers, the Pope stressed that "work must be a source of hope and life, allowing the expression of individual creativity and capacity for good".

Promoting professional development

The Pope urged the entire community to foster conditions for the professional development of all, particularly younger generations.

"I hope," the Pope said, "for a collective commitment from institutions and civil society to create valid employment opportunities that offer stability and dignity, ensuring especially that young people can realize their dreams and contribute to the common good".

Poland’s World of Work pilgrimages

And, speaking to pilgrims from Poland, the Pope recalled the country's long tradition of "World of Work pilgrimages," which he said originate from the teaching of Saint John Paul II and his encyclical Laborem exercens , which was published in the context of developments such as the widespread introduction of automation.

In the document, the Polish Pope wrote that the Church "”considers it her task always to call attention to the dignity and rights of those who work, to condemn situations in which that dignity and those rights are violated, and to help to guide the above-mentioned changes so as to ensure authentic progress by man and society.”

Hoping is witnessing

In his catechesis, Pope Leo recalled Saint Paul's invitation to the Christians of Corinth to "consider their calling" and to "see how God has brought together people who otherwise would never have met." In the church of Corinth, St Paul wrote, "those who are more humble and less powerful have now become precious and important."

"God's criteria," the Pope said, "with an emphasis on the least, are an "earthquake" that does not destroy, but reawakens the world."

"The word of the Cross," Pope Leo stressed, "awakens the conscience and reawakens the dignity of each person. Dear brothers and sisters, to hope is to bear witness: to testify that everything has already changed, that nothing is as it was before."