Pope Benedict XVI urged young people yesterday to reject what he said was the “spiritual desert” spreading throughout the world and to use their faith to build a new age free from greed and materialism.
At a Mass before more than 200,000 young Roman Catholic pilgrims, Benedict said “the world needs renewal” and challenged them to be the agents of change.
“In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair,” the pontiff said during the final mass for World Youth Day.
The 81-year-old pope said it was up to a new generation of Christians to “build a world in which God’s gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished — not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed.”
The aim was “a new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deadens our souls and poisons our relationships,” he said.
Yesterday’s mass wrapped up the church’s six-day festival in Sydney that has drawn massive crowds of pilgrims to Australia’s largest city, and has been watched on television by a global audience estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
At the start of his last full day in the country, the pope flew by helicopter over hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who staged an all-night vigil at a race track ahead of the outdoor papal Mass which formally ended World Youth Day celebrations.
Some 200,000 young pilgrims camped out at the racetrack overnight, singing as temperatures dipped to about 8˚C. The crowd swelled to more than 300,000 as local residents flocked to the track on an overcast morning.
In a tribute to the region’s native peoples, a group of dancers from South Pacific island nations danced in front of the pope in straw clothing that was in stark contrast to his traditional red and gold vestments.
But the pope’s message to the young people was very traditional — they had to avoid “falsely conceived freedom” and look for that “underground river” of Christian values that will help them build their lives on firm foundations.
The 1.1 billion-member Catholic Church hopes World Youth Day, the brainchild of the late Pope John Paul II, will revitalize the world’s young Catholics at a time when the cult of the individual and consumerism have become big distractions in their lives.
The 81-year-old Benedict announced that the next World Youth Day will be in Madrid, Spain, in 2011 and that he hoped to be there.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
CRITICAL MOVE: TSMC’s plan to invest another US$100 billion in US chipmaking would boost Taiwan’s competitive edge in the global market, the premier said The government would ensure that the most advanced chipmaking technology stays in Taiwan while assisting Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in investing overseas, the Presidential Office said yesterday. The statement follows a joint announcement by the world’s largest contract chipmaker and US President Donald Trump on Monday that TSMC would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next four years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US, which would include construction of three new chip fabrication plants, two advanced packaging facilities, and a research and development center. The government knew about the deal in advance and would assist, Presidential
RSS