The following is the text of the video message sent by the Holy Father Francis to the participants in the first online conference against bullying and cyberbullying, entitled “#StopcyberbullyingDay – 24h Scholas Talks”, organized by WeZum, the international youth observatory of the Pontifical Scholas Occurrentes Foundation, in collaboration with Time4Child Cooperativa Sociale ONLUS, taking place today in Rome at the Vatican headquarters of the Foundation in Piazza San Calisto:

Video Message of the Holy Father

Dear young people of Scholas:

It is a pleasure to talk to you. I know all about what you are doing, that is a big job, a great effort that each of you put in to organize these meetings.

An issue that concerns me a lot is that each one of you should find your own identity, and without the need to diminish or obscure the identity of others. Finding your own identity is a path, it is a path of dialogue, it is a path of reflection, it is an inner path.

And a very easy way not to do it in the right way is to attack or diminish the identity of others. Here bullying is born. Bullying is a phenomenon of self-compensation, self-assessment, not of finding myself, but of decreasing the other to feel better. It means learning to look from top to bottom, and badly. Do not forget that it is only legitimate for one person to look at another downwards, from above, do you know when? When helping them to get up. Any other way of looking from above downwards is not legitimate. And when it occurs in youth groups, in schools, in neighbourhoods, wherever, in these expressions of aggression, bullying, you see the poverty of the identity of the person who attacks, who needs to attack in order to feel that he or she is a person. In the pharmacy do not sell remedies against bullying, laboratories have not yet achieved the formula. Meanwhile, what to do? The only way is to share, to live together, to dialogue, to listen to the other, to take time to walk together, to take time because it is time that makes the relationship. Do not be afraid to dialogue: each of us has something to give to the other. Each one of us has something good to give to the other, each one of us needs to receive something good from the other. Dialogue, the dialogue that makes us equal, not in identity – we all have different identities – makes us equal along the way. We are journeyers, all equal; we all walk, all different, but all in harmony. Declare war on bullying, because it diminishes dignity, and stand up for dialogue; walking together, with patience of listening to the other. The peace will then be strong, and that same strong peace will let you discover your own dignity, your own dignity. May God bless you, and go ahead, do not be afraid of dialogue, it is worthwhile.