Volunteer work is "an opportunity to train one’s personality and fit in society with a proactive and responsible contribution". This was said yesterday by Benedict XVI, as he met the world of volunteer work in Vienna, at the Wiener Konzerthaus. After saying thanks for "the marked culture of volunteer work in Austria", the Pope noticed that "one’s love for one’s neighbours cannot be delegated; the state and the political world, despite their proper care for relief in cases of need and their social work, cannot replace it. It always requires personal and volunteer commitment", through which "help retains its human dimension and is not made impersonal". So volunteers are not "fill-ins" in the social network, "but people who contribute to the human and Christian face of our society". Without volunteer work, "the common good and society could not, cannot and will not be able to continue. The natural will to help lives and proves itself beyond self-interest and expected reciprocation; it breaks the rules of market economy". Man "is much more than a simple economic factor to be assessed according to economic criteria. The progress and dignity of a society always depend, again and again, on those people who do more than their simple duty".
