AMERICA/ARGENTINA - On the feast of Saint Cajetan: priests from working-class districts raise the alarm about unemployment

Buenos Aires (Agenzia Fides) - Work is a "criterion of order" for individual and family life. But today in Argentina, work opportunities are falling "like the pieces in a game of dominoes". This is what the priests of the "Villas Miseria" and the Argentine working-class districts emphasize in an appeal on the occasion of the feast of Saint Cajetan of Thiene, the Saint of Bread and Work", who is very dear to the Argentine faithful and whose feast on August 7 is celebrated with particular devotion by numerous pilgrims in the sanctuary dedicated to him in the "Barrio Lieners" on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The shrine of Saint Cajetan, is dear to the Argentine workers and the people since the golden age of Peronist trade union movement. Argentines have always asked the Saint from Vicenza, the friend of prostitutes and the poor oppressed by usurers, for "pan y trabajo", bread and work. Without directly addressing the government's economic policy, the priests involved in the pastoral care of workers describe the impact of the economic measures on the lives of ever larger sections of the Argentine population with worrying data: "Public servants", they say in their message, "have been laid off and can no longer find work. Many people in our working-class neighborhoods were employed on construction sites or in odd jobs that no longer exist. Many workers in cooperatives whose contracts were canceled have plunged into poverty". "In our pastoral mission", the priests add, "we see the urgent need to unite as a society to give priority to employment". The decline of Argentine industry, local markets and the national economy has "left a trail of people on the side of the road". And the economy, the priests emphasize, "will not be put back on track by simply adjusting the big numbers of the macroeconomy." The priests of the "Villas Miseria" and the working-class neighborhoods appeal to "the rulers of the various jurisdictions," to "the entrepreneurs" and to "the various social actors" to seek a broad consensus "to take positive measures in favor of our unemployed brothers and sisters." The priests' document concludes with an invocation to Saint Cajetan, so that the saint of the "pan y trabajo" "accepts the gratitude of those who have a decent job and intercedes for those who do not have it."
Pope Francis has also always celebrated Holy Mass in the Shrine on the feast of Saint Cajetan during the 15 years of his tenure as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. "There are pains and sorrows. There are pains and sufferings that cry out for vengeance: those of wages denied, those of lack of work," he said on August 7, 2006, adding: "The pains of injustice cry out for vengeance because they are pains that can be avoided simply by being just, by helping those most in need, by creating work, without stealing, without lying, without taking too much, without taking advantage." Two years later, in 2008, he addressed the faithful: "Well, let me ask you a question: is the Church a place open only to the good?" And everyone in chorus: "No!" "Is anyone thrown out here because they are bad? No, on the contrary, we welcome them with more affection. Jesus taught us this. So imagine how patient the heart of God is with each of us." At the end of the Mass, Cardinal Bergoglio always walked along the line of the faithful - hundreds of thousands - who had been waiting patiently for hours to venerate the Saint. As far as he could reach them, he hugged one after the other, told jokes, listened to stories and problems, blessed children, rosaries, photos of sick relatives and the bellies of pregnant women, always gently urging them to have their unborn children baptized soon. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 7/8/2024)

Share:

local churches

---

---

saints

---

---

work

---

---

unemployment

---

---

economy

---

---