The Working World

Every year 20 million young people throughout the world enter the ranks of labor. Among them there are Catholics, but there are also millions of others who are ready for religious formation. You must feel responsible for them all. How many does the Church keep? How many does she win back? Since the climate of industrial work is dangerous to young men, the Catholic "cell" must intervene in workshops and also on trains, buses, in families, and neighborhoods. It will act everywhere to give tone, exercise beneficial influence, and spread a new life. Thus a Catholic fore man will be the first to take care of the new arrivals. For instance, he will help them to find decent lodgings and make desirable friendships, and he will put them in touch with local church life. He will assist them in adapting themselves easily to their new position in life.

The appeal which We made last year to German Catholics also applies to lay apostles the whole world over, wherever there is technical and industrial activity. We told them: "You have been given one important task, that of giving the world of industry a Christian form and structure . . . Christ, by Whom all things were created, the Lord of the world, is also the Lord of the present-day world, because this also is called upon to be a Christian world. It is up to you to stamp it with the imprint of Christ." (Broadcast message to Cologne Catholic Day on Sept. 2, 1956-Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, vol. XVIII, p. 397.) This is certainly the most onerous but also the greatest task of the apostolate of the Catholic laity.