Among all the brouhaha over who invited whom and when, the media has missed the story behind the conference. So let’s talk about what this conference is about, why it’s important and why Bernie makes sense as an invitee (rather than say, Paul Ryan or John Kerry, who are both catholic).
So, what’s this conference about?2016 is the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Centesimus Annus”. In it he sought to offer a papal perspective on the social and economic issues of his day. The 1991 encyclical was itself a response to Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical “Rerum novarum” which dealt with the challenges of industrialization, labor relations, and what he called the dignity of work and worker. Here’s John Paul II quoting Leo XIII:
A workman's wages should be sufficient to enable him to support himself, his wife and his children. "If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice".
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Prominent among these, because of the space which the Pope devotes to it and the importance which he attaches to it, is the "natural human right" to form private associations. This means above all the right to establish professional associations of employers and workers, or of workers alone. Here we find the reason for the Church's defence and approval of the establishment of what are commonly called trade unions: certainly not because of ideological prejudices or in order to surrender to a class mentality, but because the right of association is a natural right of the human being, which therefore precedes his or her incorporation into political society. Indeed, the formation of unions "cannot ... be prohibited by the State", because "the State is bound to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and if it forbids its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence".