Vatican
City, 7 June 2013
(VIS) – This morning, Benedict XVI received participants in the
plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture, which has the
theme of "Emerging Youth Cultures". The Pope expressed his
hopes that their work will be fruitful and contribute to "the
Church's work in the lives of young people, which is a complex and
articulated reality that can no longer be understood from within a
homogeneous cultural basis but only in a horizon … that is made up
of a plurality of viewpoints, perspectives, and strategies."
The
Pope then spoke of the "widespread climate of instability"
that is affecting the cultural, political, and economic areas―noting
in the latter, the difficulty of young persons to find employment―and
that has psychological and relational repercussions. "The
uncertainty and fragility that characterize so many young people
often pushes them to the margins, making them almost invisible and
absent from society's cultural and historical processes. … The
affective and emotional sphere, … strongly affected by this climate
… gives birth to apparently contradictory phenomena like the
spectacularization
of private life and a narcissistic selfishness. Even the religious
dimension, the experience of faith and membership in the Church are
often lived from an individualistic and emotional perspective."
"Nevertheless, positive data are
not lacking, such as volunteering, "profound and sincere faith
experiences, … the efforts undertaken, in many parts of the world,
to build societies capable of respecting the freedom and dignity of
others, beginning with the smallest and weakest. All of this,"
he emphasized, "consoles us and helps us to draw a more accurate
and objective picture of youth cultures. We cannot, therefore, be
content with reading the cultural phenomena of the youth according to
consolidated paradigms, paradigms that have become cliches. Nor can
we analyse them in ways that are no longer useful, that are based on
outdated and inadequate cultural categories. Ultimately, we are
facing a very complex but fascinating reality that must be thoroughly
understood and loved with great empathy, a reality wherein we must
pay very close attention to the bottom lines and to what is to come."
The Pope referred to the youth of many
Third World countries that, with their cultures and needs, represent
"a challenge to the global consumer society and to the culture
of established privileges, which benefit a small group of the
population of the Western world. Consequently, youth cultures are
also 'emerging', in the sense that they demonstrate a profound need,
a cry for help, or even a 'provocation' that cannot be ignored or
neglected either by civil society or by the ecclesial community."
Benedict XVI repeated his concerns for
the so-called "educational emergency", which accompanies
the other emergencies affecting the different dimensions of the human
person and our fundamental relationships "as the growing
difficulties in the labour market or in the effort over time to be
faithful to responsibilities assumed. From this would follow, for the
future of the world and of all of humanity, a not merely economic and
social impoverishment, but a human and spiritual one as well. If the
young no longer hope or progress, if they don't put their energy,
their vitality, and their capacity for anticipating the future into
the dynamic of history, then we will find ourselves a humanity that
is locked in itself, lacking confidence and a positive attitude
toward the future."
"Although
we are aware of the many problematic situations, which also touch
upon the spheres of faith and membership in the Church, we wish to
renew our faith in the young and reaffirm that the Church looks to
their condition and their cultures as an essential and inescapable
reference point for pastoral outreach. … The Church has confidence
in the young. She hopes in them and in their energy. She needs their
vitality in order to continue living the mission entrusted to her by
Christ with renewed enthusiasm. I very much hope, therefore, that the
Year of Faith will be, also for the younger generations, a precious
opportunity to rediscover and strengthen the friendship with Christ
from which springs the joy and enthusiasm to profoundly change
cultures and societies."
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