Augurusa Foundation Celebrates the Entrepreneurs’ Jubilee in Vatican with Msgr. Francesco Savino
On the Occasion of the Workers and Entrepreneurs’ Jubilee, the Vice President of the Italian Episcopal Conference Discusses the Church’s Legacy and Future in an Exclusive Interview with the Augurusa Foundation
The Workers and Entrepreneurs’ Jubilee, dedicated to celebrating the value and meaning of entrepreneurship according to the principles of the Church’s social doctrine, has just concluded. H.E.R. Msgr. Francesco Savino, Vice President of the Italian Episcopal Conference and Bishop of the Diocese of Cassano allo Jonio, presided over the Mass for the occasion in St. Peter’s Basilica, addressing more than 500 members of the Christian Union of Entrepreneurs and Managers (UCID) and their collaborators from all over Italy who crossed the Holy Door on Saturday, May 3. Among them was also the Calabrian delegation led by Francesco Augurusa, president of UCID Calabria and president of the Antonio Emanuele Augurusa Foundation.
With St. Peter’s Dome in the background, Msgr. Savino shares his thoughts in an exclusive interview with the Augurusa Foundation. When asked about the significance of the Workers and Entrepreneurs’ Jubilee and the meaning of being participants and protagonists on a day that sees the business world gathered in the heart of Rome, Monsignor Savino urges businesses to be like a family and to act according to criteria that are not just about profit, but about common goods, the universal destination of goods, and subsidiarity, putting workers’ rights at the center. In particular, the right to safety and a dignified wage. “The relationship between faith and business revolves around legality as a means to achieve justice,” states the bishop. “If we combine the solid principles of democracy with the fundamental principles of the Church’s social doctrine, I am convinced that Catholic entrepreneurs will know how to activate generative processes of an economy that is not merely financial but real, one that creates serious job opportunities.”
Regarding Pope Francis’s legacy and the future of the imminent Conclave, Msgr. Savino speaks firmly: “Let’s not dwell on the ‘Pope predictions,’ which I find to be an absolutely sterile sport. As believers, let us above all pray for our Cardinal brothers, so that through community discernment, through their dialogue, and through listening to the Holy Spirit from God’s Word, they may soon generate a Pope, to whom I say immediately – regardless – true and authentic obedience.”
Reflections on Calabria were not lacking: “We must go beyond all self-referentiality and individualism, we must affirm the principle of cooperation, and together in Calabria, we can truly generate a more just economy, a more solidary economy, an economy that corresponds to the rights and duties of Calabrian citizens.” He then expressed praise and appreciation for Calabrian entrepreneurs and particularly for the President of Calabrian Christian entrepreneurs, Francesco Augurusa: “I am very close to entrepreneur Augurusa,” he warmly declares. “I am convinced that Augurusa is a beautiful testimony of how one can combine a social enterprise, a serious enterprise that generates work and economy, with that Faith that must evidently animate business and more generally temporal realities.”
