In a statement for World Fisheries Day, the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development has urged that ordinary fishermen should have a voice in the formation of international policies governing the industry.
The statement from Cardinal Michael Czerny views with regret a “highly industrialized” approach to fishing, in which workers have little control over their conditions. The Vatican statement says that if fishermen are not given a voice, policies will be set by more powerful interests, and executives who “live and reason from the comfortable position of a high level of development and a quality of life well beyond the reach of the majority of the world’s population.”