Pontiff Calls for Solution to Unemployment Crisis

Inaugurates House of Charity for Homeless Immigrants
CASSINO, Italy, MAY 24, 2009

(Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is calling for solutions to the unemployment crisis, for the creation of jobs to help and protect families who are facing critical economic situations. The Pope stated this today in his homily during a Mass celebrated in Cassino's Miranda Plaza, the square that will be renamed after him, in the town east of the Monte Cassino Abbey.

The Pontiff spent the day visiting the monastery founded by his patron, St. Benedict, the cradle of the Benedictine order.He called on his listeners to "reinvigorate" their "faith in the real presence of Jesus," because "without him we cannot do anything of value in our life or apostolate."

The Holy Father explained the purpose of his visit, to "encourage you constantly to build, found and rebuild" the diocesan community on Christ, following the example of St. Benedict, who recommended in his Rule to "put nothing before Christ.

"He underlined the saint's call to "keep our hearts fixed on Christ and put nothing before him," by the evangelical program found in the Benedictine motto: "ora et labora et lege" -- "prayer, work, culture."

"Prayer," the Pope said, "to which grave peals of the bell of St. Benedict calls the monks every morning, is the silent path that leads us directly to the heart of God; it is the breath of the soul that gives us peace again in the storms of life."

Critical situation

Speaking next about work, he noted that "humanizing the world of work is typical of the soul of monasticism."Benedict XVI continued: "I know how critical the situation of many workers is. I express my solidarity with those who live in a troubling precariousness, with those workers who are on unemployment assistance and those who have been laid off."

He called on "the entrepreneurs and those who are able, to seek, with everyone's help, valid solutions to the employment crisis, creating new places of work to safeguard families."

The Pontiff added: "In this respect, how can we not recall that today the family has an urgent need to be better protected, since it is gravely threatened in its very institutional roots?

"I think also of the young people who have difficulty finding a dignified job that allows them to build a family."

To them I would like to say: Do not be discouraged, dear friends, the Church will not abandon you!"

He recalled the more than 25 young people from the diocese who participated in World Youth Day in Sydney, and urged them to use that "extraordinary spiritual experience" to be leaven among their friends, and to "be the new missionaries in this land of St. Benedict!"

Addressing the world of culture, the third part of Benedictine spirituality, the Holy Father noted the testimony archived by the Monte Cassino monastery, that "European culture has been constituted by the search for God and availability to listen to him.""In today's cultural effort aimed at creating a new humanism," he said, "faithful to the Benedictine tradition you rightly intend to stress attention to the fragility, weakness of man, to disabled persons and immigrants."

Benedict XVI expressed his gratitude for the possibility of "inaugurating the 'House of Charity,'" for homeless immigrants, "where a culture attentive to life will be built with deeds." The project is being carried out in a former hospital under the sponsorship of the abbot of Monte Cassino.

He encouraged his listeners to live the spirit of St. Benedict, to "proclaim that in your life no one and nothing must take Jesus away from the first place; the mission to build, in Christ's name, a new humanity to teach hospitality and help of the weakest."