Pope Condemns Sexual Harassment of Working Women

Pope John Paul II condemned sexual harassment in the workplace today in a strong defense of women’s economic and maternal rights.

Speaking in this southernmost major city of Australia in the island state of Tasmania, the pontiff upheld the moral values of human labor and included a message concerning women, who he said must not be forced to sacrifice their dignity or their maternal roles in order to get and keep a job.

“Today the presence of women and mothers in almost every sector of the working world is a fact that has to be considered,” John Paul told a group at the Willson Training Center, a church-run school here for long-term unemployed youths.

“They should be able to exercise their gifts and abilities in various forms of employment, but at the same time due respect must be given to their obligations and aspirations,” he said. Then, in a reference to sexual harassment, he added:

“Work should be so structured that women do not have to bargain for their advancement at the expense of their own dignity or at the expense of their vital role inside the family.”

Underlining his feelings concerning the special role of working mothers, he said: “The freedom of women as mothers must be clearly protected so that they are free from psychological or any other form of discrimination, especially by comparison with women without family obligations. Mothers must not be financially penalized by the very society which they serve in a most exalted and necessary way.”

Moving almost tirelessly through three speeches as he traveled from Sydney to Hobart to Melbourne on the 10th day of his two-week South Pacific-Indian Ocean pilgrimage, John Paul also warned against discrimination in the country’s multiracial society and praised its mix of cultures as beneficial to church and society.

In Sydney on Wednesday, he spoke before an estimated 200,000 people at a Mass at a race track, issuing an appeal to those who have strayed from the Roman Catholic Church to return to the fold. The audience was the Pope’s largest yet in Australia.

In his Tasmania appearance today, speaking to an audience of tens of thousands gathered for an outdoor Mass at Elwick Race Course on Hobart’s broad Derwent River, he added a litany of the evils of modern life, a favorite papal theme.

“Christians cannot remain silent in the face of the unspeakable crimes against human life which are being committed,” the pontiff said, “nor can they ignore the violation of human rights, the tide of drug and alcohol abuse, the breakdown of family life, the neglect of the poor.”

In remarks prepared for delivery later today during an ecumenical prayer service at the Anglican St. Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, the Pope called for a continued worldwide campaign of prayer for peace.