HELP CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE TO FIND TRUE HAPPINESS

VATICAN CITY, APR 28, 2006 (VIS) - Made public today was a Message from the Pope to participants in the 12th plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which is being held in the Vatican from April 28 to May 2, on the theme: "Vanishing Youth? Solidarity with Children and Young People in an Age of Turbulence."

  Benedict XVI opens his Message by affirming the existence of "two significant and interconnected trends: on the one hand, an increase in life expectancy, and, on the other, a decrease in birth rates."

  "This situation is the result of multiple and complex causes - often of an economic, social and cultural character - which you have proposed to study," he adds. "But its ultimate roots can be seen as moral and spiritual; they are linked to a disturbing deficit of faith, hope and, indeed, love. ... Perhaps the lack of such creative and forward-looking love is the reason why many couples today choose not to marry, why so many marriages fail, and why birth rates have significantly diminished."

  Often children and young people, "instead of feeling loved and cherished, appear to be merely tolerated. In 'an age of turbulence' they frequently lack adequate moral guidance from the adult world," and many of them "now grow up in a society which is forgetful of God. ... In a world shaped by the accelerating processes of globalization, they are often exposed solely to materialistic visions of the universe, of life and human fulfillment."

  "Parents, educators and community leaders ... can never renounce their duty to set before children and young people the task of choosing a life project directed towards authentic happiness, one capable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, good and evil, justice and injustice, the real world and the world of 'virtual reality'."

  Pope Benedict encourages the participants in the plenary to give "due consideration to the question of human freedom, which is "the condition for authentic human growth. Where such freedom is lacking or endangered, young people experience frustration and become incapable of striving generously for the ideals which can give shape to their lives as individuals and as members of society."

  Christians, the Holy Father concludes, cannot fail "to be convinced that faith, lived out in the fullness of charity and communicated to new generations, is an essential element in the building of a better future and safeguarding intergenerational solidarity."
MESS/PLENARY/ACAD-SS                            VIS 20060428 (410)