Young Christian Workers (YCW), in partnership with the University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA), will host a symposium on 12 June based on Pope Leo XIII’s social encyclical, Rerum Novarum.
The revolutionary encyclical on worker’s rights, published in 1891, is considered the foundational document for the church’s social teaching.
The symposium will commence with Mass at 9.30am in the Notre Dame Chapel on Saturday, 12 June, followed by catechesis and community organising skills delivered by a range of speakers including Daniel Matthys, Natalie Thomas, Thomas Meagher, and Paul Kelly.
Each speaker will focus on different Catholic social teachings: human dignity, subsidiarity, and solidarity.
The day will conclude with a report by UNDA Politics and International Relations Senior Lecturer Dr Martin Drum on poverty in Perth, particularly relating to “precarious work” and work casualisation.
“Precarious work” is one of the biggest challenges facing young workers today, particularly in the current COVID-19 economic climate, and is one of the main issues YCW intends to emphasise throughout the day.
After each talk, breakout groups will engage in discussion, which will help them reflect on their personal experience and how they can act informed by the principles of Catholic social teaching.
Sam Vermeulen, YCW Perth Youth Engagement Officer, says the conference aims to educate young Christians on Catholic social teaching and practical actions young people can commit to for the common good.
“Rerum Novarum is a widely celebrated encyclical and is still relevant today; its content had a big personal effect on me in my conversion to Catholicism two years ago,” he told The eRecord.
“I can still remember reading: ‘working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition’, and although this was written 130 years ago, this still seems to be the condition of most workers today.
“His Holiness continues to suggest that as Catholics, we should be ‘helping [workers] out of their difficulties, inviting them to companionship, and receiving the returning wanderers to a haven where they may securely find repose’. This is what I hope this event can achieve.”
Sam highlights Pope Pius XI’s words to a young Cardinal Joseph Cardjin (the founder of YCW): “the workers need the Church, and the Church needs the workers”.
“This is the main reason for running this event, the Church has so many resources [intellectual, cultural, economic, and spiritual resources] that workers desperately need. And the Church, by its missionary nature, needs to be engaging with the realities of everyday people in the world,” he concluded.
Register online: https://payments.nd.edu.au/RerumNovarumSymposium
Tickets: $25 (student rate: $15), including morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and a copy of Rerum Novarum. Scheduled from 9.30am to 4.45pm at 19 Mouat St, Fremantle.