26 April" "
The young need to be taught to “swim against the tide”: that, according to Cardinal Godfried Danneels, archbishop of Malines-Bruxelles, is the fundamental objective for the evangelization of youth. The Christian said Card. Danneels in his report to the 10th Symposium of European bishops, held in Rome from 24 to 28 April on the theme “Youth of Europe in the process of change. Laboratory of the faith” is “a counter-voice” in society: not a spectator sitting comfortably on his sofa, but a person actively involved in society and in politics, a person who “believes in the future”, and who exerts himself in “resistance”. For the young, said Danneels, drawing a kind of “portrait” of the life-styles” of the new generations in Europe, the future is “a magic word”, but it is also “disturbing”. The young fear “unemployment, the destruction of the environment, old age, the return of racism”. But it is above all “the infernal pace of daily life”, together with the many “prophets of doom, that fills them with dread”. “Telling the truth of the Gospel to the young”, but “with great love”: that is the task entrusted by Danneels to adults. “Taking seriously” the questions of young people means, in the cardinal’s view, “giving them intelligent answers, which must never bar their road, but open the way to further reflection”. The young generations, he said, demand “clarity and perceptiveness”, not short-sightedness and meanness of spirit: “They have a need for principles, a framework of thought, a precise code of conduct”, and for witnesses capable of finding “new words”, suited to them, to express concepts such as “grace. sin, resurrection, Church, kingdom of God”. Even in a world marked by “progress, efficiency, enterprise and creativity concluded Danneels the young are ready to ‘lose time’, to do things ‘gratuitously’, and to rediscover a taste for prayer”. But they also have a need for men and women endowed with “prophetic prestige” and a Church that is for them “like a mother who loves them and has faith in them”.
