Vatican City, Nov 9, 2009 / 16:16 pm
As part of his pastoral visit to Brescia, Italy, Pope Benedict stopped by the town of Concesio, where his predecessor Paul VI was born. He then continued on to the new headquarters of the Paul VI Institute where he gave a talk emphasizing his predecessor’s commitment to the youth and his challenge to them to follow Christ.
Benedict recalled that Pope Paul VI, “student and priest, bishop and Pope, was always aware of the need for a qualified Christian presence in the world of culture, art and civil society, a presence rooted in the truth of Christ and, at the same time, attentive to man and his vital needs.”
Noting that “Paul VI defined himself as an 'elderly friend of the young,'” Pope Benedict said of his predecessor, “He was able to recognize and share their torment as they were torn between the desire to live, the need for certainty, the longing for love, the sense of being lost, the temptation to skepticism and the experience of disillusionment.”
Pope Paul VI “learned to understand their hearts, and recalled that the agnostic indifference of modern thought, critical pessimism and the materialist ideology of social progress are not enough for the spirit, which is open to completely different horizons of truth and life.”