“Young people are a valuable resource for evangelization but we need to respond to their challenges and provocations to give them the chance of living their faith in Christ with an ever greater commitment of life”. So said Msgr. Cesare Nosiglia, vice-gerent of the diocese of Rome, on opening the first day of the work of the 10th Symposium of European bishops in Rome, promoted by the Council of the European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE), on the theme “Youth of Europe in a process of change. Laboratory of the faith”. “To support this commitment added Nosiglia we ask the young to help us to discern this renewal in a perspective not of conflict but of hope in the Gospel. It is possible to live as Christians full of enthusiasm, faith and coherence in this world of postmodernity. Young people are doing so by giving rise to a new inculturation of the Gospel in the world. It’s a message of great hope for the whole of Europe”. Nonetheless the greatest challenge to be faced, in Nosiglia’s view, is that of “helping the young to live the faith outside an apparent exclusion from the present day. There is in fact a profound correlation between the historical roots of the Christian faith, its memory, and its intrinsic newness and openness to the future. The Christian faith cannot exist without memory and without a future, because the event of redemption is rooted in history”. “We don’t want Msgr. Nosiglia concluded to renew the youth apostolate but to begin a journey of passionate and sincere exploration with the young to understand how we may begin a new period of evangelization and of the rooting of the gospel in the history and life of our society”.
