CSDC 274

Work is also “an obligation, that is to say, a duty on the part of man”⁵⁹¹ John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 16: AAS 73AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 619.. Man must work, both because the Creator has commanded it and in order to respond to the need to maintain and develop his own humanity. Work is presented as a moral obligation with respect to one's neighbour, which in the first place is one's own family, but also the society to which one belongs, the nation of which one is son or daughter, the entire human family of which one is member. We are heirs of the work of generations and at the same time shapers of the future of all who will live after us.