"We are going through a social and political crisis that is rooted in the last few decades, a crisis that reveals first of all a special worry about the future. This is why we have to stop and think about how we imagine our fate. Who has the solution for our future? What do we expect? What do we hope?". These are the questions that the archbishop of Paris, mgr. Vingt-Trois, asked yesterday to the hundreds of young people who took part in the students’ usual pilgrimage to Chartres, now in its seventy-first year. Unavoidable was the reference to the social tensions that have roused France for days: "For many people highlighted the archbishop the only hope that drives them is that of certainty: a certain job, a certain lifestyle, certain health. But who can make you believe they can guarantee these certainties to you? The root question is to acknowledge who you trust most, in other words, who can lead you to accomplish your life, to reach a balance that will enable you to experience happiness. But not just a small happiness as measured against the certainties guaranteed by the collective labour agreement, not just the happiness of a protected job, but the deep, real happiness that only the joy of being in the world and of living can give". "This happiness recalled the archbishop to the young nobody can serve it to you on a silver plate with the talisman of a diploma. You have to build and rebuild it day after day". (to be continued)
