VATICAN CITY, MAR 31, 2004 (VIS) - Pope John Paul sent a Message to the participants in the Eighth International Youth Forum, whose meeting started today in Rocca di Papa near Rome on the theme "Young People and the University: Witnessing to Christ in the University World." The youth will join the Pope tomorrow afternoon in St. Peter's Square and again when their meeting concludes on April 4 for the Palm Sunday Eucharistic celebrations in the square. The Message is dated March 25.
"It is important in our age," he writes, "to rediscover the bond that unites the Church to the world of higher education. For the Church not only played a decisive role in founding the first universities, but throughout the centuries she has been a workshop of culture, and continues in the same direction today through the Catholic universities and various forms of presence in the vast world of higher education."
"In the university," he tells the students, "you are not only recipients of services, but you are the true protagonists of the activities performed there. ... Fortunately, the influence of ideologies and utopias fomented by the messianic atheism that had such an impact in the past on many university environments has waned considerably today. But there are also new schools of thought, which reduce reason to the horizon of experimental science alone, and hence to technical and instrumental knowledge, sometimes enclosing it within a sceptical and nihilistic vision. These attempts to evade the issue of the deepest meaning of existence are not only futile; they can also become dangerous."
"Jesus is the truth of the universe and of history, the meaning and the destiny of human existence, the foundation of all reality! It is your responsibility, you who have welcomed this Truth as the vocation and certitude of your lives, to demonstrate its reasonableness in the university environment and in your work there. ... But if your faith is linked merely to fragments of tradition, fine sentiments or a generic religious ideology, you will certainly not be able to withstand the impact of the environment you are in. You must therefore seek to keep your Christian identity steadfast, and rooted in the communion of the Church."
Pope John Paul urged the young people to persevere in prayer, play an active part in Church life and "build the Church within your Universities, as a visible community which believes, prays, gives account for our hope, and lovingly welcomes every trace of good, truth and beauty in University life."
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MESS/YOUTH FORUM:UNIVERSITY/... VIS 20040331 (410)
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