Vatican City, Oct 11, 2005 / 22:00 pm
As bishops and delegates from ecclesial communities around the world continue to meet in Rome for the 11th General Synod of Bishops, one of this morning's major focuses was the role and attention which should be paid to the Church's young people, a group which the late John Paul II called, the future of the Church.
Brother Alvaro Rodriguez Echeverria F.S.C., President of the Union of Superiors General in Costa Rica told the group that, faced with immense cultural challenges today, the Church must give special attention to the young who, he said, seek a "mystical experience of union with Jesus."
Brother Echeverria said that the 'Instrumentum laboris', or the working document of the Synod, particularly "underlines the Church's hope in its young people."
"Young people today," he said, "living in globalized cultures marked by the incessant change of perspectives, and in a society ruined by so much economic insecurity and by the glorification of violence, find it difficult to articulate the story of their lives in a way that gives meaning, direction and purpose to their youthful dreams."