At 12:25pm today in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the members of the International Federation of Volunteer Christian Service Organizations (FOCSIV) on the occasion of the International Day of Volunteers.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
I am pleased to meet you on the occasion of the International Day of Volunteers. I send you all my greetings and wish to thank the President, who presented your mission in the context of the current day. Your Federation, which includes various Christian-inspired Volunteer Organizations, plays a valuable role in the world. It is the image of a Church which is on the fringes of society and is ready to serve our brothers and sisters who are in difficult situations. IN fact, the various realities that compose the FOCSIV seek to combine the experiences of its various members with the dimension of volunteer service to the poor in the fashion of the good Samaritan and according to gospel values. Based on your Christian experience, you present yourselves as volunteers in the world with many projects for development, concrete answers to the scandals of hunger and war.
I thank you for what you are doing, and for how you are doing it! Your work alongside men and women who are in difficulty is a living testimony to the tenderness of Christ who journeys with humanity in every time. Continue on this path of witnessing the value of gratitude: the poor should never become an occasion for gain! Poverty changes faces and it even happens that some among the poor develop different expectations: they aspire to be protagonists, they organize themselves and, above all, they practice the solidarity that exists among those who suffer, among the least valued of individuals. You are called to pay attention to these signs of the times and to become instruments at the service of the poor. Solidarity with the poor means thinking and acting in terms of community, with priority for the life of all people being considered above the appropriation of goods by a few. It also means fighting against the structural causes of poverty: inequality, lack of work and of a home, the denial of social and labor rights. Solidarity is a path to making history with the poor, fleeing from alleged altruistic works that reduce the other to passivity.
Among the main causes of poverty is an economic system that plunders nature – I am thinking in particular of deforestation, but also of environmental disasters and the loss of bio-diversity. We must confirm that creation is not property that we can dispose of at will, and even less is it the property of just a few. Creation is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we look after it and use it with respect, for the benefit of all. Therefore, I encourage you to continue in your commitment, so that creation remains a patrimony of all, to be given in all its beauty to the future generations.
Many of the countries in which you work know the scandal of war. By working for the development of peoples, you also cooperate in building peace, seeking with steadfast tenacity to disarm minds, to bring people close to one another, to build bridges between cultures and religions. Faith will help you to do this even in the most difficult countries, where the spiral of violence does not seem to leave room for reasonableness.
A sign of peace and hope is your activity in refugee camps, where you meet desperate people, faces marked by abuse, children hungry for food, liberty and a future. How many people in the world flee from the horrors of war! How many persons are persecuted for their faith, forced to abandon their homes, their places of worship, their land, their homelands! How many shattered lives! How much suffering, how much destruction! Faced with all this, Christ’s disciple does not stand back; he does not turn his face away, but seeks to take charge of this sorrowful humanity, with closeness and evangelical hospitality. I am thinking of migrants and refugees, who seek to leave behind them harsh conditions of life and dangers of all sorts. The collaboration of all people is necessary: of institutions, NGOs and ecclesial communities to promote ways of harmonious coexistence between different persons and cultures. The migratory movements call for appropriate forms of hospitality that do not leave migrants at the mercy of the sea and bands of unscrupulous traffickers. Necessary at the same time is an energetic collaboration between States to regulate and manage these phenomenons effectively.
Dear brothers and sisters, in over 40 years of life, volunteers working in your Federation have been true witnesses of charity, peacemakers, architects of justice and of solidarity. I encourage you to continue with joy on this path of fidelity to man and to God, putting the person of Jesus ever more at the centre. It will help you a lot every day to find the time for a personal encounter with God in prayer: this will be your strength in the most difficult moments of disappointment, of solitude, of incomprehension.
I entrust each of you and the organizations of your Federation to the protection of Mary Most Holy. My Blessing also accompanies you. And please remember to pray for me! Thank you.
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the audience with members of the
International Federation of
Volunteer Christian Service Organizations
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
I am pleased to meet you on the occasion of the International Day of Volunteers. I send you all my greetings and wish to thank the President, who presented your mission in the context of the current day. Your Federation, which includes various Christian-inspired Volunteer Organizations, plays a valuable role in the world. It is the image of a Church which is on the fringes of society and is ready to serve our brothers and sisters who are in difficult situations. IN fact, the various realities that compose the FOCSIV seek to combine the experiences of its various members with the dimension of volunteer service to the poor in the fashion of the good Samaritan and according to gospel values. Based on your Christian experience, you present yourselves as volunteers in the world with many projects for development, concrete answers to the scandals of hunger and war.
I thank you for what you are doing, and for how you are doing it! Your work alongside men and women who are in difficulty is a living testimony to the tenderness of Christ who journeys with humanity in every time. Continue on this path of witnessing the value of gratitude: the poor should never become an occasion for gain! Poverty changes faces and it even happens that some among the poor develop different expectations: they aspire to be protagonists, they organize themselves and, above all, they practice the solidarity that exists among those who suffer, among the least valued of individuals. You are called to pay attention to these signs of the times and to become instruments at the service of the poor. Solidarity with the poor means thinking and acting in terms of community, with priority for the life of all people being considered above the appropriation of goods by a few. It also means fighting against the structural causes of poverty: inequality, lack of work and of a home, the denial of social and labor rights. Solidarity is a path to making history with the poor, fleeing from alleged altruistic works that reduce the other to passivity.
Among the main causes of poverty is an economic system that plunders nature – I am thinking in particular of deforestation, but also of environmental disasters and the loss of bio-diversity. We must confirm that creation is not property that we can dispose of at will, and even less is it the property of just a few. Creation is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we look after it and use it with respect, for the benefit of all. Therefore, I encourage you to continue in your commitment, so that creation remains a patrimony of all, to be given in all its beauty to the future generations.
Many of the countries in which you work know the scandal of war. By working for the development of peoples, you also cooperate in building peace, seeking with steadfast tenacity to disarm minds, to bring people close to one another, to build bridges between cultures and religions. Faith will help you to do this even in the most difficult countries, where the spiral of violence does not seem to leave room for reasonableness.
A sign of peace and hope is your activity in refugee camps, where you meet desperate people, faces marked by abuse, children hungry for food, liberty and a future. How many people in the world flee from the horrors of war! How many persons are persecuted for their faith, forced to abandon their homes, their places of worship, their land, their homelands! How many shattered lives! How much suffering, how much destruction! Faced with all this, Christ’s disciple does not stand back; he does not turn his face away, but seeks to take charge of this sorrowful humanity, with closeness and evangelical hospitality. I am thinking of migrants and refugees, who seek to leave behind them harsh conditions of life and dangers of all sorts. The collaboration of all people is necessary: of institutions, NGOs and ecclesial communities to promote ways of harmonious coexistence between different persons and cultures. The migratory movements call for appropriate forms of hospitality that do not leave migrants at the mercy of the sea and bands of unscrupulous traffickers. Necessary at the same time is an energetic collaboration between States to regulate and manage these phenomenons effectively.
Dear brothers and sisters, in over 40 years of life, volunteers working in your Federation have been true witnesses of charity, peacemakers, architects of justice and of solidarity. I encourage you to continue with joy on this path of fidelity to man and to God, putting the person of Jesus ever more at the centre. It will help you a lot every day to find the time for a personal encounter with God in prayer: this will be your strength in the most difficult moments of disappointment, of solitude, of incomprehension.
I entrust each of you and the organizations of your Federation to the protection of Mary Most Holy. My Blessing also accompanies you. And please remember to pray for me! Thank you.
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