Pope Francis Explains God's Style in 3 Words and says "we must go this way." to Institute that Protects Workers
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SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
TO THE MANAGERS AND STAFF OF THE NATIONAL INSURANCE INSTITUTE
AGAINST ACCIDENTS AT WORK (INAIL)
TO THE MANAGERS AND STAFF OF THE NATIONAL INSURANCE INSTITUTE
AGAINST ACCIDENTS AT WORK (INAIL)
Pope Francis addresses members of an association working for victims of accidents in the workplace and urges them to learn to recognise the various forms of disabilities, as well as the various struggles each worker faces.
Clementine Hall
Thursday, March 9, 2023
________________________________________
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
I welcome you and thank the President for his words. Thank you for referring to the social doctrine of the Church. I am pleased with this meeting in order to be able to encourage your commitment which, as the President said, aims to "build a society in which no one is left behind". You do it by working to protect the dignity of people in the workplace. We know this is not always the case and it is not everywhere. Often the brunt of an injury is placed on the shoulders of the family, and this temptation comes in many forms. The recent pandemic has increased the number of complaints in Italy, particularly in the healthcare and transport sectors.
Thank you for the extra care you have put in place in the period of maximum health crisis, especially towards the most fragile categories of the population. Furthermore, in recent months there has been an increase in cases of female accidents, reminding us that full protection for women in the workplace has not yet been achieved. And on this too, I take the liberty of saying, there is a prior discarding of women, for fear that they might become pregnant; she is less “safe” a woman because she can become pregnant. This is what you think about when you hire her: when she starts to "get fat" if you can send her away it's better. This is the mentality and we have to fight against it.
The activity of your Institute is doubly valuable, both in terms of training to prevent accidents at work, and in terms of accompanying the injured and providing concrete support for their families. The service to which you dedicate yourself allows you not to make anyone feel abandoned on their own. This is decisive. Without safeguards, society becomes more and more a slave to the throwaway culture. He ends up giving in to the utilitarian gaze towards the person, rather than recognizing his dignity. The tremendous logic that spreads waste can be summed up in the phrase: "You are worth if you produce". So only those who manage to stay in the cog of the activity count and the victims are set aside, considered a burden and entrusted to the good hearts of the families.
In the encyclical Fratelli tutti it is emphasized that the "gap manifests itself in many ways, such as in the obsession with reducing labor costs, without realizing the serious consequences that this causes, because the unemployment that occurs has the direct effect to widen the boundaries of poverty" (n. 20). Among the consequences of not investing in safety in the workplace there is also an increase in accidents. Faced with this mentality we need to remember that life is priceless. A person's health is not exchangeable for a little extra money or for someone's individual interest. And unfortunately we must add that one aspect of the throwaway culture is the tendency to blame the victims. This is always seen, it is a way of justifying, and it is a sign of the human poverty into which we risk causing relationships to fall if we lose the right hierarchy of values, which has the dignity of the human person at its top.
Dear friends, your presence today allows us to reflect on the meaning of work and on how it is possible, in different historical contexts, to combine the Gospel parable of the good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:25-37). Care for the quality of work, as well as for places and transport, is fundamental if we want to promote the centrality of the person; when work degrades, democracy is impoverished and social ties loosen. It is important to ensure that safety regulations are followed: they can never be seen as an unnecessary burden or burden. As always happens, we realize the value of health only when it is missing. Help can also come from the use of technology. For example, it has favored the development of "remote" work, which in some cases can be a good solution, provided it does not isolate workers by preventing them from feeling part of a community. The clear separation between places of family life and working environments has had negative consequences not only on the family, but also on the culture of work. He validated the idea according to which the family is the place of consumption and the company that of production. This is too simplistic. He made people think that care is an exclusive matter of the family and has nothing to do with work. He risked fostering the mentality according to which people are worth what they produce, so that outside the productive world they lose value, identified exclusively with money. This is a habitual thought, a thought I would say not entirely conscious, but subliminal.
Your activity reminds us that the style of the Good Samaritan is always current and has a social value. "With his gestures, the Good Samaritan showed that the existence of each of us is linked to that of the others: life is not time that passes, but a time of encounter" (Fratelli tutti, 66). When a person calls for help, finds himself in suffering and risks being abandoned on the side of the road of society, the prompt and effective commitment of institutions such as yours is fundamental, which put into practice the verbs of the Gospel parable: see, have compassion , get close, bandage wounds, take charge. And that's not a good deal, it's always a loss!
I encourage you to face all forms of disability that arise. Not only the physical ones, but also the psychological, cultural and spiritual ones. Social abandonment has repercussions on the way each of us sees and perceives ourselves. "Seeing" the other also means treating people in their uniqueness and singularity, getting them out of the logic of numbers. The person is not a number. There is no "injured person" but the name and face of those who have suffered an injury. There is a noun, not an adjective: an injured person; no, it is a person who has suffered an injury. We are used to using adjectives too much, we are in a civilization that has fallen a bit into using adjectives too much and we run the risk of losing the culture of the noun. This is not an injured person, he is a person who has had an injury but he is a person.
Do not give up on compassion – which is not a stupid thing for women, for old ladies, no, it is a very great human reality -: I share because I have a certain compassion, which is not the same as lástima [Spanish: pity], but it is share fate. It is about feeling the suffering of the other in one's own flesh. It is the opposite of indifference - we live in a culture of indifference - which leads us to turn our gaze elsewhere, to carry on without letting ourselves be touched inwardly. Compassion and tenderness are attitudes that reflect God's style. If we ask ourselves what God's style is, three words indicate it: closeness, God is always close, he does not hide; mercy, he is merciful, he has compassion and for this reason he is merciful; and thirdly, he is tender, he has tenderness. Closeness, compassionate mercy and tenderness. This is God's style and we must go this way.
Let's think of closeness, proximity: bridging distances and placing ourselves on the same level of shared fragility. The more one feels that he is fragile, the more he deserves closeness. In this way, barriers are broken down to find a common communication plan which is our humanity.
Bandaging wounds can mean for you to dedicate time and remove any bureaucratic temptation. The person who has suffered an injury asks to be accepted even before being compensated. And every economic compensation acquires full value in the acceptance and understanding of the person.
It is then a question of taking responsibility with the family for the dramatic situation of those who are forced to abandon work due to an accident; take full care of it. This also requires creativity, so that the person feels accompanied and supported for who they are and not with false pity. It is not almsgiving, it is an act of justice.
Dear friends, let us allow ourselves to be challenged by the wounds of our sisters and brothers - these wounds challenge us, let us be challenged - and trace paths of fraternity. Our insurance is given by solidarity and charity, first of all. It does not only respond to criteria of legal justice, but it is a concern for humanity in its various dimensions. When this fails, the "save whoever can" quickly translates into "all against all" (cf. Fratelli tutti, 33). Indifference is the sign of a desperate and mediocre society. I say desperate in the sense that it has no hope.
I entrust you to the protection of Saint Joseph, patron saint of all workers. The Lord bless you and Our Lady keep you. And please pray for me. Thank you!
Clementine Hall
Thursday, March 9, 2023
________________________________________
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
I welcome you and thank the President for his words. Thank you for referring to the social doctrine of the Church. I am pleased with this meeting in order to be able to encourage your commitment which, as the President said, aims to "build a society in which no one is left behind". You do it by working to protect the dignity of people in the workplace. We know this is not always the case and it is not everywhere. Often the brunt of an injury is placed on the shoulders of the family, and this temptation comes in many forms. The recent pandemic has increased the number of complaints in Italy, particularly in the healthcare and transport sectors.
Thank you for the extra care you have put in place in the period of maximum health crisis, especially towards the most fragile categories of the population. Furthermore, in recent months there has been an increase in cases of female accidents, reminding us that full protection for women in the workplace has not yet been achieved. And on this too, I take the liberty of saying, there is a prior discarding of women, for fear that they might become pregnant; she is less “safe” a woman because she can become pregnant. This is what you think about when you hire her: when she starts to "get fat" if you can send her away it's better. This is the mentality and we have to fight against it.
The activity of your Institute is doubly valuable, both in terms of training to prevent accidents at work, and in terms of accompanying the injured and providing concrete support for their families. The service to which you dedicate yourself allows you not to make anyone feel abandoned on their own. This is decisive. Without safeguards, society becomes more and more a slave to the throwaway culture. He ends up giving in to the utilitarian gaze towards the person, rather than recognizing his dignity. The tremendous logic that spreads waste can be summed up in the phrase: "You are worth if you produce". So only those who manage to stay in the cog of the activity count and the victims are set aside, considered a burden and entrusted to the good hearts of the families.
In the encyclical Fratelli tutti it is emphasized that the "gap manifests itself in many ways, such as in the obsession with reducing labor costs, without realizing the serious consequences that this causes, because the unemployment that occurs has the direct effect to widen the boundaries of poverty" (n. 20). Among the consequences of not investing in safety in the workplace there is also an increase in accidents. Faced with this mentality we need to remember that life is priceless. A person's health is not exchangeable for a little extra money or for someone's individual interest. And unfortunately we must add that one aspect of the throwaway culture is the tendency to blame the victims. This is always seen, it is a way of justifying, and it is a sign of the human poverty into which we risk causing relationships to fall if we lose the right hierarchy of values, which has the dignity of the human person at its top.
Dear friends, your presence today allows us to reflect on the meaning of work and on how it is possible, in different historical contexts, to combine the Gospel parable of the good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:25-37). Care for the quality of work, as well as for places and transport, is fundamental if we want to promote the centrality of the person; when work degrades, democracy is impoverished and social ties loosen. It is important to ensure that safety regulations are followed: they can never be seen as an unnecessary burden or burden. As always happens, we realize the value of health only when it is missing. Help can also come from the use of technology. For example, it has favored the development of "remote" work, which in some cases can be a good solution, provided it does not isolate workers by preventing them from feeling part of a community. The clear separation between places of family life and working environments has had negative consequences not only on the family, but also on the culture of work. He validated the idea according to which the family is the place of consumption and the company that of production. This is too simplistic. He made people think that care is an exclusive matter of the family and has nothing to do with work. He risked fostering the mentality according to which people are worth what they produce, so that outside the productive world they lose value, identified exclusively with money. This is a habitual thought, a thought I would say not entirely conscious, but subliminal.
Your activity reminds us that the style of the Good Samaritan is always current and has a social value. "With his gestures, the Good Samaritan showed that the existence of each of us is linked to that of the others: life is not time that passes, but a time of encounter" (Fratelli tutti, 66). When a person calls for help, finds himself in suffering and risks being abandoned on the side of the road of society, the prompt and effective commitment of institutions such as yours is fundamental, which put into practice the verbs of the Gospel parable: see, have compassion , get close, bandage wounds, take charge. And that's not a good deal, it's always a loss!
I encourage you to face all forms of disability that arise. Not only the physical ones, but also the psychological, cultural and spiritual ones. Social abandonment has repercussions on the way each of us sees and perceives ourselves. "Seeing" the other also means treating people in their uniqueness and singularity, getting them out of the logic of numbers. The person is not a number. There is no "injured person" but the name and face of those who have suffered an injury. There is a noun, not an adjective: an injured person; no, it is a person who has suffered an injury. We are used to using adjectives too much, we are in a civilization that has fallen a bit into using adjectives too much and we run the risk of losing the culture of the noun. This is not an injured person, he is a person who has had an injury but he is a person.
Do not give up on compassion – which is not a stupid thing for women, for old ladies, no, it is a very great human reality -: I share because I have a certain compassion, which is not the same as lástima [Spanish: pity], but it is share fate. It is about feeling the suffering of the other in one's own flesh. It is the opposite of indifference - we live in a culture of indifference - which leads us to turn our gaze elsewhere, to carry on without letting ourselves be touched inwardly. Compassion and tenderness are attitudes that reflect God's style. If we ask ourselves what God's style is, three words indicate it: closeness, God is always close, he does not hide; mercy, he is merciful, he has compassion and for this reason he is merciful; and thirdly, he is tender, he has tenderness. Closeness, compassionate mercy and tenderness. This is God's style and we must go this way.
Let's think of closeness, proximity: bridging distances and placing ourselves on the same level of shared fragility. The more one feels that he is fragile, the more he deserves closeness. In this way, barriers are broken down to find a common communication plan which is our humanity.
Bandaging wounds can mean for you to dedicate time and remove any bureaucratic temptation. The person who has suffered an injury asks to be accepted even before being compensated. And every economic compensation acquires full value in the acceptance and understanding of the person.
It is then a question of taking responsibility with the family for the dramatic situation of those who are forced to abandon work due to an accident; take full care of it. This also requires creativity, so that the person feels accompanied and supported for who they are and not with false pity. It is not almsgiving, it is an act of justice.
Dear friends, let us allow ourselves to be challenged by the wounds of our sisters and brothers - these wounds challenge us, let us be challenged - and trace paths of fraternity. Our insurance is given by solidarity and charity, first of all. It does not only respond to criteria of legal justice, but it is a concern for humanity in its various dimensions. When this fails, the "save whoever can" quickly translates into "all against all" (cf. Fratelli tutti, 33). Indifference is the sign of a desperate and mediocre society. I say desperate in the sense that it has no hope.
I entrust you to the protection of Saint Joseph, patron saint of all workers. The Lord bless you and Our Lady keep you. And please pray for me. Thank you!
Source: Vatican.va with Screenshot
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