BRESSANONE, Italy (CNS): Pope Benedict XVI highlighted the “authentic joy” experienced by World Youth Day participants and said it stood in stark contrast to the drug-fuelled escapism affecting many young people today.
The Pope, speaking August 10 at the end of a two-week vacation in the northern Italian city of Bressanone, offered what he called a “spontaneous reflection” on his World Youth Day trip to Australia in July.
What particularly impressed him in Australia, he said, were the “joyous faces of so many boys and girls from all over the world”.
“In the great cities of the young Australian nation, those young people were a sign of authentic joy, sometimes noisy but always peaceful and positive,” he said.
Although an estimated 400,000 young people participated in the Australian events, the Pope noted that they caused no disorder or damage.
“To be happy, they didn’t need to resort to vulgarity or violence, or to alcohol and drugs,” he said. Instead, they drew happiness from meeting each other and discovering a new world, he said.
The Pope said it was only natural to compare World Youth Day participants to others their age who sought “false escape” through degrading experiences that often ended in tragedy.
Such escapism, he said, was a typical by-product of today’s prosperous society that, in order to fill up inner emptiness and boredom, promoted new experiences that were increasingly emotional and extreme.
Before leaving Bressanone, the Pope offered a reflection on vacations, saying that unless they included a spiritual element they were destined to disappoint.
People who look at vacation solely as an endeavour to find “the mirage of pleasure” often ended up more worn out than when they began, he said.
