The challenges for tomorrow’s businesses arise from the principles established by the Social Doctrine of the Church. The human person must always be at the center of all reasoning, even productive, and social rights represent a cornerstone on which to base one’s company. The speeches of the Vatican Secretary of State and the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday at the Italian Embassy in the Holy See at the event organized by Ucid
05/16/2024
Responsibility and meeting. Man as the driving force of business serving the universal common good. The Vatican Secretary of State, the Cardinal Pietro Parolin cadence the words. He weighs them and dispenses them, alternating his gaze between the lectern and the audience. You speak in front of the young entrepreneurs summoned for the Rome Summit promoted by Ucid at the Italian Embassy in the Holy See.
After greetings from the Italian ambassador to the Holy See, Francesco De Nitto and the video message from the President of the Chamber, Lorenzo Fontanathe prelate urges the community of representatives of the economic categories by proposing a business model strongly anchored to the Social Doctrine of the Church.
The main path, therefore, is the one that “places the human person at the center in the name of moral freedom which translates into commitment to the pursuit of the common good”. Businesses must increasingly “recognize human rights as an absolute value and the transcendence of the person: we must always be respectful of life, at any time”.
The right of economic initiative “allows man to express his own subjectivity and creativity, which can never be replaced by artificial intelligence, responds to the different needs that arise in society”. Hence the importance of “corporate social responsibility”. An already fairly consolidated reality which, however, must be strengthened without ever giving way to the oblivion of “responsibility and encounter” so that entrepreneurs can truly be increasingly “builders of the future”.
Parolin’s words inform all the subsequent interventions of an appointment that Benedetto Delle Site, national president of the Ucid youth movement, defines it as “service”. His is an excursus that focuses on some issues that, now more than ever, are weighing heavily on the sustainability of the production system: from the decline in entrepreneurship among the under 35s, through sustainability policies, ending with the collapse in birth rates .
The demographic winter is the key theme of the speech of the deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Antonio Tajani.
Before him, a long series of contributions from the “real” protagonists of the day: Riccardo Di Stefanopresident of young entrepreneurs Confindustria, Angelica Donatipresident of young entrepreneurs Ance, Davide Pelipresident of young entrepreneurs Confartigianato, Andrea Sangiorgipresident of young entrepreneurs Confcooperative, Antonio Ieraciyouth president of Federmanager, Enrico Parisinational delegate for Coldiretti young businesses, Giovanni Gioiapresident of young people Confagricoltura-Anga ed Eustachio Papapietropresident of young entrepreneurs of Confapi.
Tajani chooses to start from the family-business combination. “The demographic crisis that is affecting the entire West – he explains – has different types of causes and consequences. Among these, some are also of an economic nature. If families are smaller, it means they consume less and there is less work. Therefore, less freedom.”
Yes, because Tajani – in the wake of the long Forzista tradition – combines the value of the enterprise with that of freedom. A result that “is not achieved through citizenship income, but through work in the name of the collective good”. And this is why the market “must have rules” and the world of work must “represent an opportunity for women, who must not be faced with the choice between being mothers or workers”.
Among the various themes addressed, the transition and respect for the environment could not be missing. Here the deputy prime minister, with a very political attitude, thrusts the knife. “A sensible environmental policy – he states – always places man at the centre. You cannot have a fideistic and ideological approach to these issues, like the one Greta or her priest Timmermans had. The third way is that of pragmatism: free enterprise, care for the environment. All on a human scale.”
