Pope meets with Polish Solidarity
Trade Union
 |
| Pope Francis with members of the Solidarnose (Solidarity) Trade Union (Vatican Media) |
Pope Francis greets leaders of Poland’s Solidarity movement
on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of its foundation.
By Vatican News
Before his weekly General Audience on Wednesday, Pope
Francis addressed leaders from the Polish Trade Union Solidarity (Solidarnosc),
in the Paul VI Hall.
The movement was founded by Lech Walesa and others in 1980
at the former Lenin Shipyards in Gdańsk, becoming the first independent labour
union in a Soviet bloc country.
The Pope recalled that through the 1980’s it had been the
protagonist of political and social changes in Poland and has also played an
inspiring role beyond the country’s borders.
“I congratulate you”, said Pope Francis, “on your service
for the common good”, adding that, “the sincere search that individuals and
groups make for good, truth and justice is always accompanied by the presence
of God.”
“Forty years ago”, he continued, “Saint John Paul II invoked
for his fellow countrymen this very presence of God and the breath of the Holy
Spirit, exclaiming: "Let your Spirit come down! And renew the face of the
earth. Of this land!".
The Pontiff told those present that “a sign of openness to
the Spirit of God is the attitude of solidarity with people deprived of their
inalienable rights, solidarity that takes place in the fields of work and
study, in social, economic, political and international relations.”
Solidarity, he said, “is a sensitivity to the voice of
brothers and sisters who have been deprived of the right to decent working
conditions, to the just reward necessary to support the family, to health care
or to rest.”
The Pope noted that “the condition for positive changes in
social structures is above all a change in mentality, convictions and
attitudes, to which the younger generations must be educated.”
Otherwise, he said, “sooner or later, new structures
themselves will no longer serve the common good, but particular groups, and
will become corrupt, heavy and ineffective, and even harmful.
Concluding his greeting, and invoking the intercession of
the Mother of God, Queen of Poland, he prayed for the fruitful perseverance of
their work of assistance and support.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét