2008-07-13 15:36:10

Pope Benedict XVI Arrives in Australia


(13 July 08 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI landed safely at Australia’s Richmond Air Force Base just outside Sydney, this morning, after pausing in Darwin to take on fuel and stretch the legs.

The Holy Father’s travels carried him more than 10 thousand miles or 16 thousand kilometres from Rome to the capital of New South Wales and the host city of World Youth Day, 2008.

Pope Benedict’s public appearances are scheduled to begin on Thursday of this week, after a few days’ rest at the Kenthurst Study Centre outside Sydney.

Religion, Christian faith, is in a certain sense in crisis. This is clear because the impression was, we do not need God. We can do all ourselves.

During the customary in-flight press conference, shortly after take-off, Pope Benedict said he is optimistic for the future of the Church in Australia, as in the West, generally, and in all the world, noting that the Church in the Western world, and Europe especially is in crisis, though not in decline…

Now, in this historical moment, we begin to see that we need God.


In his message to the people of Australia and to the young people pilgrims taking part in this 23rd World Youth Day, the hunger and thirst that all human beings, and especially young people have for God, was one of the Holy Father’s principal motifs:

“How much our world needs a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit!” Says Pope Benedict in the message, and he goes on to say, “There are still many who have not heard the Good News of Jesus Christ, while many others, for whatever reason, have not recognized in this Good News the saving truth that alone can satisfy the deepest longings of their hearts.”

Quoting from Psalm 104, the Pope prays “when you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:30).

The Holy Father then expresses his firm belief that young people are called to be instruments of that renewal, communicating to their peers the joy they have experienced through knowing and following Christ, and sharing with others the love that the Spirit pours into their hearts, so that they too will be filled with hope and with thanksgiving for all the good things they have received from our heavenly Father.

In the Past, I believed that young people were not really open to the experience of community, whether it was in the Church, or within the civic community, or even within the family.


The desire for community is something that the former archbishop of the host city of World Youth Day 1993, Denver, Colorado, and current Major Penitentiary of Holy Roman Church, Cardinal James Stafford discussed with me recently in an interview at his offices in the Apostolic Chancery…

It was one of the most rewarding experiences that I’ve had, not simply as a bishop, but as a priest and as a Christian, and it was rewarding because I could see in the face of young people a new awareness of what they have been called to live, that is, their vocation as Christians. In other words, I found young people finding Christ in one another. World Youth Day changed my view of young people, that they were very open to the Church, but, as a matter of fact, hungry for the community of forgiveness and mercy that is the Church.


Paraphrasing St. Augustine, whose autobiographical Confessions remain to this day among the most riveting and compelling accounts of conversion ever composed; at the beginning of his visit to the great southern land of the Holy Spirit, as he calls it in his message; Pope Benedict says his prayer is that the hearts of the young people who gather in Sydney for the celebration of World Youth Day will truly find rest in the Lord, and that they will be filled with joy and fervour for spreading the Good News among their friends, their families, and all whom they meet.

Musical coda WYD Hymn out RealAudioMP3







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