Our 'common home' is more than just the natural environment - nor is it the environment in the most danger.

This is a wonderful community we bring together tonight. CAPP – US, our beloved Jesuits, members of the Fordham faculty and trustees, alumni and friends. I want to explain why it is so fitting that we come together.

I am delighted to be with you this evening at this dinner offered by the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation and made possible by the generosity of Fordham University.

Pope Leo XIII’s landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum was published during the tempestuous years of the Industrial Revolution, and as such was The Church’s first social commentary – and our first resource in Catholic Social Teaching – considering the rights of the worker.

These are the primary ideas that connect the new Apostolic Constitution governing the Roman Curia with the Second Vatican Council.

I would like to thank the President of AIDDA, Laura Frati Gucci, for inviting me to the 58th FCEM World Congress in this conference entitled “How Women Face the New Economy and Ecology”