4. The remuneration owed to the clerical and lay staff at the Holy See, according to their personal conditions of life, is regulated by the major principles of the social teachings of the Church, which have been made quite clear by the magisterium of the Popes from the time of the publication of Leo XIII’s Encyclical Letter Rerum novarum up to John Paul II’s Encyclicals Laborem exercens and Sollicitudo rei socialis.

While labouring under a grave lack of economic means, the Holy See makes every effort to measure up to the heavy obligations to which it is held with regard to its workers — even granting them certain benefit packages — but subject to that basic situation which is peculiar to the Apostolic See and has been explained in the Pope’s Letter, the fact, namely, that the Holy See cannot be compared to any other form of State, since it is deprived of the ordinary means of generating income, except the income that comes from universal charity. However the Holy See is conscious of the fact — and the same Apostolic Letter makes this clear — that the active cooperation of everybody, and especially of the lay members of the staff, is necessary so that regulations and interrelations may be protected, as well as those rights and duties that arise out of "social justice" when it is correctly applied to the relations between worker and employer. On this subject, the Apostolic Letter has pointed out the help that workers associations can give in this respect, like the "Associazione Dipendenti Laici Vaticani," recently founded through productive talks among the various administrative levels to promote the spirit of solicitude and justice. The Apostolic Letter however has cautioned us to beware lest this kind of group distort the leading ideal that must govern the work community of the See of Peter. The letter says: "However, a lapse of this type of organization into the field of extremist conflict and class struggle does not correspond to the Church’s social teaching. Nor should such associations have a political character or openly or covertly serve partisan interests or other interests with quite different goals."