This implies that charitable activity can not be separated from pastoral activity, but that it takes place in connection with it. Social work has a pastoral core, and pastoral work must be enriched by the experience of charity. Another element to highlight is the great formative value of charitable activity. This is especially true of places where for years regimes have forced a population to be indifferent, fearful and passive. Man must be made to be active and responsible, removing from him the fear of being a protagonist in society.
Charitable work represents an excellent occasion to form the human being.
There is hence a need of formation for charitable activity, in the same way that charitable activity is formation. The environment in which such formation becomes particularly urgent is the family, which in some societies is in great crisis. In this respect it should be reaffirmed that this is one of the major areas of involvement which awaits the Catholic Church in the present and the future, as the Holy Father has often reminded us. An important task of charitable organizations, under the guidance of their respective pastors, is the care of volunteers. One must reflect on the basic formation of volunteers, guided by the social teachings of the Church.