Pope Francis greets conference on women and work

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has gave his support to a two-day International Workshop on “Women and Work” taking place in Rome beginning Friday.

The workshop is sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and is focused on the dichotomy between the needs of work and family facing women today. It will consider proposals for a more effective promotion of the work of women, especially in the face of discrimination such as pay disparities and that faced by mothers in the workplace.

The Holy Father sent his greetings in a telegram sent through the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

The telegram expresses the hope of Pope Francis that the symposium “will help to affirm the indispensable role of women in the family and the formation of children,” as well as “the essential contribution of women workers in the building up of economic structures and a politics worthy of humanity, and  identifying concrete suggestions and positive models for the harmonization of work commitments and family needs.”

The seminar will also mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1995 publication of Pope Saint John Paul II’s Letter to Women.