POPE GREETS 20,000 IN ROMAN PRELUDE TO WORLD YOUTH DAY

VATICAN CITY, MAR 22, 2002 (VIS) - As a prelude to the Palm Sunday celebration of World Youth Day in local dioceses and the international youth day that will take place in Toronto next July, John Paul and 20,000 young people from the diocese of Rome gathered in St. Peter's Square yesterday to witness to their faith though testimonials, song and prayer.

The young people gathered in the square at 5:30 p.m. and were joined by the Holy Father shortly after 6 p.m. Among the guests last evening were a brother and sister from Canada whose father lost his life in the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City.

The Pope's talk to the young people focussed on the World Youth Day theme, "You are the salt of the earth .... You are the light of the world."

"I understand your difficulties," John Paul II told the young men and women present. "The many proposals that reach your conscience from every angle certainly do not help you to easily see" the plan that Christ has for you. "Is it not perhaps true that some of your peers live for the moment, choosing from time to time what could appear to be the easiest path? Listen to me! If you do not dedicate time to prayer and do not allow yourselves to be helped by a spiritual guide, the world's confusion will suffocate even God's voice."

"You have asked me: 'What do we have to do to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world?' To answer, we must first remember that God created man in His image, giving him as a first and fundamental vocation that of being in communion with Him."

"Precisely because we are created in God's image," the Pope continued, "we have received from Him that great gift of freedom. If it is not used well, however, freedom can distance us from God. It can make us lose that dignity He gave us. When it is not formed by the Gospel, freedom can be transformed into slavery: the slavery of sin and eternal death."

"Young people of the new millennium, do not abuse your freedom! Do not waste the great dignity that has been given to you as Sons of God. Give yourselves only to Christ. ... In this way you will discover that, only in adhering to the will of God can we be the light of the world and the salt of the earth."

Following the Holy Father's talk and the reading of the Gospel, the group of skaters that had opened the celebration lit candles and skated from the raised part of St. Peter's Square in front of the facade down into the square itself.

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