CSDC 269

Starting with Rerum Novarum, the Church has never stopped considering the problems of workers within the context of a social question which has progressively taken on worldwide dimensions.⁵⁸³ Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 2: AAS 73AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 580-583. The Encyclical Laborem Exercens enhances the personalistic vision that characterized previous social documents, indicating the need for a deeper understanding of the meaning and tasks that work entails. It does this in consideration of the fact that “fresh questions and problems are always arising, there are always fresh hopes, but also fresh fears and threats, connected with this basic dimension of human existence: man's life is built up every day from work, from work it derives its specific dignity, but at the same time work contains the unceasing measure of human toil and suffering, and also of the harm and injustice which penetrate deeply into social life within individual nations and on the international level”.⁵⁸⁴ John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 1: AAS 73AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 579. In fact, work is the “essential key” ⁵⁸⁵ John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 3: AAS 73AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 584. to the whole social question and is the condition not only for economic development but also for the cultural and moral development of persons, the family, society and the entire human race.