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Society risked being enslaved to work, and must recover the traditional day of rest, Pope Benedict XVI said last night.

Pope Benedict said worship must not be “hostage to the latest trends” with “contrived and inappropriate additions”, the traditional sign of the peace (when people greet each other as a part of worship) should be restructed just to their immediate neighbors, and there should be more Latin and more Gregorian chants rather than modern music.

He told Catholic politicans fundamental Catholic values were not negotiable and they must feel “particularly bound” to introduce and support laws based on these values.

His comments were part of an apostolic exhortation (one step below and encyclical) on the euchariet, in which he affirmed conservative Catholic practice and moved to reduce informality in the Mass.

The Pope, who is known to favor ritual and dislike formality such as guitars in the church, said Gregorian chant was “the music proper to the Roman liturgy.”

He said it was particularly urgent to remember that the Day of the Lord (Sunday) was also a day of rest, and people who wanted to refrain from work should not be penalised. He said a day of rest gave work a proper perspective: “Work is for man, and not man for work.

Ministers had to give better homilies (sermons), better prepared and avoiding general and abstract topics.