COUNCIL TO HOST MEETING ON WORK AS KEY TO THE SOCIAL QUESTION

VATICAN CITY, SEP 11, 2001 (VIS) - The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has organized an international meeting which will take place in the Vatican's New Synod Hall from September 13 to 15 on the theme "Work and the Social Question 20 Years after 'Laborem Exercens'." The meeting is entitled "Work as Key to the Social Question - The Great Social and Economic Transformations and the Subjective Dimension of Work."

According to a council communique published today, this encounter was organized in collaboration with Italy's Sacred Heart Catholic University and with important international research centers including Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, St. John's University in New York, the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and the Leo XIII Social Institute of Madrid.

The communique states that "in 1981, John Paul II wrote in his encyclical 'Laborem Exercens,' that 'man's work is a key, probably the principal key, of the entire social question, if we seek to look at this question truly from a point of view of the good of man'. In the last two decades, work has changed in a significant way, because of the effect of globalization and developments in the economic world and in society. These changes have a direct impact on people, which John Paul II calls 'the subjective dimension of human work'." The communique adds that the meeting will look at these questions in the "context of the Catholic social tradition."

Cardinal Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, council president, will preside at the opening session. An audience with the Holy Father is on the schedule.

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