Vatican City, May 1, 2020 / 02:00 am
Pope Francis asked St. Joseph to help Catholics fight for dignified work for all as he celebrated Mass Friday.
To mark the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, May 1, the Italian Christian Workers' Associations (ACLI) brought a statue of the saint to the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta, the pope's Vatican residence.
In his homily, the pope said: "We ask St. Joseph – with this beautiful image with the tools of work in hand – to help us fight for the dignity of work, so that there might be work for all and that it might be dignified work, not the work of a slave."
At the start of Mass, Pope Francis noted that it was both the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, established by Pope Pius XII in 1955, and Workers' Day, a bank holiday in Italy.