Mothers who choose to work should have their maternity leave protected and be given opportunities to flourish both at home and in the workplace, the Pope has said.

Speaking to 7,000 members of the Italian Christian Union of Business Executives in the Vatican, Pope Francis condemned businesses that penalise pregnant women.

"How many times has a women gone to her boss and said I am pregnant and at the end of the month she is let go?" he asked, in an apparently off-the-cuff remark according to Catholic News Agency.

Women "must be protected and helped in this dual task: the right to work and the right to motherhood," the Pontiff added.

"The challenge is to protect their right to a job that is given full recognition while at the same time safeguarding their vocation to motherhood and their presence in the family."

Pope Francis also called on businesses to operate ethically, saying business men and women must live out "the demands of the gospel and the social doctrine of the Church".

They are "architects of development for the common good," he said.

"The workplace and the executive offices can become places of sanctification through everyone's commitment to build fraternal relations among business owners, managers and employees, while encouraging shared responsibility and collaboration in the common interest of all involved."

Though Catholic teaching on women priests remains conservative, it is not the first time that the Pope has advocated for equal rights for men and women in the workplace.

In April, he branded the gender pay gap "pure scandal".

"Why is it taken for granted that women must earn less than men?" he asked during his weekly audience in St Peter's Square. "No! They have the same rights".

Francis has also criticised the marginalisation of women around the globe – "a world where women are marginalised is a sterile world" – and insisted that the creation story "does not in any way express inferiority or subordination, but on the contrary, that man and woman are of the same substance and are complementary."

The presence of sin in the world has damaged the relationship between men and women, he added.