Posted on 08/18/2005 1:16:06 PM PDT by sionnsar
Promising remarks from Catholic youth gathered in Germany for World Youth Day:
...
"We don't want to hear only what pleases us," said Pascal Straszewski, 21, a Frankfurt law student. "Faith means holding fast to ideals."
"Nobody wants to hear a lie," added Felicity Elvis, 18, a journalism student from Brisbane, Australia. "Politicians lie to us all the time. We're tired of being lied to."
"Why should the Church change with the times?" asked Mexico City student Ibanez Monserrat, 19. "What it says works for all kinds of people."
These are great statements for all of us, Catholic or not.
Yes!
In reading about all the young morons who join war protests and "hookup" and drink until they puke, we tend to forget that there are an equal number of strong, moral and responsible young men and women who make their parents proud.
It is a striking opposition to the embarrassment of having the president of the United States trying to explain how oral sex isn't really even sex.
World Youth Day ping!
O/T: How'd you like to go through life with a name like "Felicity Elvis"?
Hear, hear.
I'm still loving calling that man the EX-president.
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Young Catholics want Pope to uphold Church sex stand
COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) - They're full of life, brimming with raging hormones and Catholic. So what do young people at the World Youth Day want to hear from their 78-year-old Pope about sex?
The hundreds of thousands gathered in this Rhineland city all know that Pope Benedict staunchly upholds the Church's ban on pre-marital sex, contraception, gay marriage and other aspects of what he rejects as a modern "anything goes" morality.
Clearly not all of them follow this to the letter -- and their bishops know it. But that doesn't mean the Catholic youths who've flocked here from around the world don't want Benedict to preach what he believes.
"We don't want to hear only what pleases us," said Pascal Straszewski, 21, a Frankfurt law student. "Faith means holding fast to ideals."
"Nobody wants to hear a lie," added Felicity Elvis, 18, a journalism student from Brisbane, Australia. "Politicians lie to us all the time. We're tired of being lied to."
"Why should the Church change with the times?" asked Mexico City student Ibanez Monserrat, 19. "What it says works for all kinds of people."
When asked if they lived by what the Pope preached, the young people were divided. Some gave a resounding "yes!", some said it was a complicated question and some just turned red-faced and giggled.
MIND THE GAP
Speaking before the Pope's arrival, German cardinals and bishops spoke of the gap that can exist between what the Church says and what the faithful do.
"The girls on St Peter's Square who cheer the Pope have the pill in their pockets. We've known that for a long time," Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German Bishops' Conference, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung recently.
Interviewed on Thursday by Cologne's WDR television, Bishop Reinhard Marx commented: "In these past 2,000 years, not everybody has kept the Ten Commandments. Not even the pope or the bishops! Who can keep all the commandments?"
A contradiction? Squaring the circle? "The important thing is that Jesus is our friend -- but he is a demanding friend," said Marx. "It's nothing new that all people can't live up to all these goals, which are sometimes uncomfortable."
Despite his stern reputation, Benedict hit some of the same notes in an interview with Vatican Radio on Sunday.
"Many people think Christianity is a bunch of rules, bans and dogmas you have to follow and therefore it's a heavy load," he said. "The wisdom of faith is not concerned with knowing lots of details ... but knowing above and beyond the details what life is all about, how to live it and how to shape the future."
Shaping the future is one area where the priests and nuns who lead groups to these jamborees welcome some contact between the sexes. One of their proudest boasts is how many young Catholic couples have met at earlier festivals and married.
PLEASE DON'T LECTURE
Lehmann told WDR radio this week that the Church had to find better ways to explain its views on sexuality or risk being ignored. Without arguing for a change in principles, he said it "certainly has to take a new approach to these things."
Stuart Pearce, 28, who runs a youth group in Sydney, Australia, agreed it could be hard to get across to youths the Church message of respect for life and defence of families.
Some youths he knew obeyed the Church and others were "cafeteria Catholics" taking what they wanted and leaving the rest. He tries to present the teachings as best he can.
"Nobody wants to be lectured to," he added as he waited with some group members along the Rhine for the Pope to pass during a boat trip. "They want to hear this in an edifying way."
Regina Gutierrez de la Peza, a 19-year-old student from Mexico City, said Catholic youths could also be critical about what consumer society was telling them to do.
"The idea now is that nobody is supposed to be committed to anything," she explained. "Young people are only supposed to do what they like and what's comfortable. But that's not what life is all about."
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-08-18T195922Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-213095-1.xml
You'll never hear these kinds of quotes from the mainstream press. Instead, they'll quote people from GLAAD, NOW, and NARAL -- all the while promoting the lie that churches must roll with societal changes in order to "keep up with the times", rather than embrace the wisdom of church teachings.
You'll never hear these kinds of quotes from the mainstream press. Instead, they'll quote people from GLAAD, NOW, and NARAL -- all the while promoting the lie that churches must roll with societal changes in order to "keep up with the times", rather than embrace the wisdom of church teachings.
ProLife Ping!
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They got that right!
"Why should the Church change with the times?"
The values the church teaches are timeless. I'd say these young people have their heads on straight!
It appears that the German people are loving the Pope's visit. Good for them!
WOW! Common sense in a TEENAGER! Of course it isn't an AMERICAN teenager, but hey... as another FReeper told me tonight "take it where you can get it."
They just don't make the headlines.
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