European Youth

In August, Europe is usually overcome by sloth. People go on holidays, adjourning important commitments to September. Beaches and museums are crowded with tourists. Daily life is so monotonous that journalists find it hard to find news items that will fill column headlines, which are never lacking in other times of the year. But this year it’s different. The euro zone crisis afflicted politicians’ vacations. Norway is shaken by the crime committed by a madman that tried to pass for a Christian fundamentalist. It was a faux pas, since he notoriously threatened the Pope in the recent past. That madman turned out to be the son of a Norwegian diplomat. Having learned about the tragedy he had one single piece of advice to give to his son: “He should have killed himself”. A few days later, the Masonic Lodge radiated the name of the young madman from the list of its members. We had barely recovered from the shock when TV networks aired the images of London riots: a form of protest marked by the ransacking of shops. Those youths, belonging to the lower social classes, scampered around the areas of Tottenham and Ealing with shopping trolleys. Some came by car with their parents. Young people swarmed down, plundered stores, loaded the cars with stolen freight and were off. Their parents walked away and their offspring stayed on to continue with their games. Can it be said that these teen-age “games” are simply the result of the missed integration of immigrants’ offspring? Some point out that in London gangs, most men – blacks and whites alike – come from broken-up families. That is not surprising, considering that according to the National Statistical Office, in the United Kingdom 45% of all children are born outside wedlock, as many as 70% in certain neighbourhoods like Knowsley or Merseyside, ironically nicknamed “the centre of unmarried mothers”. These unwed mothers deserve being helped, since the so-called “absconding fathers” probably represent one of the extra-economic factors that make male youths’ integration so difficult.On the sidelines of the London riots and of the Greek protests, often involving all age brackets, the “indignados” demonstrations in Spain almost passed unnoticed. “Almost” since the World Youth Days and the visit of the Holy Father Benedict XVI drew media attention to focus on the unfolding of events in Spanish streets the month of August. Almost two million young people went to Madrid to pray with the Pope and live the experience of faith communion. They too, in a certain way, belong to that group of protesting youth. They too are against the world that descended into relativism and mediocrity. But their protests have a completely different trait. They protest against a life model that is completely subjected to consumerism, against a model of education that is subordinate to the market as a whole, a model of legislation that permits the suppression of unborn children and euthanasia, a model that gives equal stature to marriage and homosexual unions.”In a world of relativism and mediocrity, we need that radicalism to which your consecration, as a way of belonging to the God who is loved above all things, bears witness”, Benedict XVI told the participants in the World Youth Days. He encouraged the youth not to build their lives on sand, but on the firm foundation that is Christ, not to let themselves be carried away by the dominating current of egoism, and live their lives as a service dedicated to God and to mankind. It is only by following this path that man can find inner peace.