25 April" "
“The picture and the prospects are not uniformly positive for the young in Europe”, pointed out Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, archbishop of Westminster and vice-president of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (CCEE), in his report to the 10th Symposium of the European bishops held in Rome from 24 to 28 April. “There is still in his view a profound social division between rich and poor in all our countries. Greater affluence has the tendency to reawaken a generalized aspiration to more and better. Violence and theft as means to close the poverty gap are increasing, fuelled by a pervasive advertising culture ramming home the message: ‘you can have it if you want’, which is deliberately aimed at younger consumers and fuelled by the natural desire to have more than one has, or at least more than the other person has”. Moreover, post-modern society, in the cardinal’s view, is dismantling some of the mainstays of society, such as the family, and “bringing to the surface some of our most inhuman taboos, paedophilia is an example. But it is also encouraging a greater individualism and a loss of faith in our communities”. To react to this situation, the archbishop encourages the parishes and the dioceses to promote experiences of communion and the “sharing of the journey of faith”. There are many ways of doing so: “Pilgrimages, service for justice and peace, groups of friends. An even more effective but in some sense contradictory way, in contemporary terms, is the experience of community life. This may be particularly useful for personal growth in the period between leaving school and going to university or embarking on a career that makes a person’s availability for service and for the life of the community more difficult. We must encourage our young people to try living a more explicit community life, with the accompaniment of the Church and of the bishops in particular.
