90 bishops, 34 young people, several priests, religious and experts will participate in the Symposium promoted by the CCEE on "Young people of Europe in the process of change" in Rome from 24 to 28 April.” “
“Young people wish to live with intensity” was the headline of a special report in the French daily La Croix of 8 February, dedicated in large part to the pilgrimage on foot of French university students from Paris to Chartres on the vigil of Palm Sunday, now also being celebrated as national youth day. This experience of itinerant prayer was inaugurated by Charles Péguy in the early years of the last century, and is now experienced and recounted by many young people in Europe. In the same report it was said that young people today are experiencing a strong identity crisis; they have difficulty in believing; they doubt everything, everyone and often themselves; they fear loneliness more than unemployment; but they do strongly believe in the virtues of tolerance and diversity. And yet, “they wish to live with intensity”. And it is just this wish, even if not well defined, that opens the door to faith. The intensity of a life consists of enthusiasm, moments of deep feeling, passionate quest, courageous choices, meetings with people that leave a sign of hope. It is a quest, at times painful, in which a person tries to find his or her own identity, the perception of him/herself as a distinct human being and at the same time a sign of continuity. Christian faith may insert itself in this process with its questions, its answers, its provocations, its silences. Failing to keep alive this presence in the thoughts of the young people of Europe, silencing it with the culture of consumerism and utilitarianism, eliminating it from the political and social fabric by various legislative measures, is to ignore or reduce the search for intensity. But how can Christian life be proposed to the young people of this age, of this Europe today? That is the basic question to be addressed by the symposium of European bishops to be held in Rome from 24 to 28 April. Is it enough to speak “tout court” of the Gospel, recall the witness given by the saints, propose a quality of life based on sobriety, on essentiality, on sharing? Of course, all this is important, but the intensity that young people have in mind goes well beyond it. They seek other answers, other interlocutors, indeed, they seek the interlocutor that may give the ultimate meaning to life today. Their search takes place in various places and in various ways, often in solitude too, but always within a European history, culture and society. The Church is called to say that modern (or post-modern) thought does not in the least prevent people from being believers, but if authentic dialogue is to exist a language is needed that does not stop at words and that allows people to see the face of Christ in the face of those who profess to be his followers. The Church feels the responsibility to combine the moment of listening with the moment of proclamation, not so much to propose concepts as to lead young people to pose questions about man and about God, about the importance of the presence of God in their everyday life, about the effort of continually seeking him, about the beauty of a meeting that is never definitive here on earth. Otherwise faith might remain an absorbing subject for study, but might not interest the future, i.e. the young.
