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Pope Benedict XVI in Germany
visits with Muslim leaders, left and rabbis, right.
Pope leads huge Mass in Germany
Pope Benedict XVI has urged the faithful to transform violence into love as he celebrated Mass for hundreds of thousands of young Roman Catholics.
That transformation alone "can genuinely renew the world", the German-born pontiff told worshippers.
The open-air service outside the city of Cologne was the climax of the Church's World Youth Day celebrations.
Some 800,000 people had spent the night outdoors at the Marienfeld site, waiting for the Mass. They stretched back as far as the eye could see, the BBC reports.
The Pope's message on this final day of his first foreign trip was back to Christian basics.
He called upon the hundreds of thousands of teenagers present to turn away from both secularism and new-age spirituality - what he describes as a "do-it-yourself" religion.
"Religion constructed on a 'do-it-yourself' basis cannot ultimately help us - it may be comfortable but at times of crisis we are left to ourselves," he said.
It was a conservative message to buttress the faith in a time and in a world where, the Pope says, we have forgotten God, our correspondent says.
The Pope has said he hopes his trip will help to kick-start "a wave of new faith among young people".
The World Youth Day festival, invented by the late Pope John Paul II, is held in a different part of the world every three years.
Sunday's festival took place at the site of a former coal mine which was turned into a cathedral for a day.
The next one will take place in Sydney, Australia, in 2008, the Pope announced at the end of the Mass.
Dialogue
~~~~~~~~
On Saturday, the Pope appealed to Muslims to help combat the spread of terrorism, in his first major address to Muslim leaders.
The pontiff told a group of leaders based in Germany that terrorist activity was perverse and cruel, and he warned of a new barbarism.
The meeting with some 30 Muslim leaders follows the Pope's earlier pledge to build "bridges of friendship" with other faiths.
He urged Muslims to join Christians to try to stop the spread of terrorism, which he called a "new barbarism".
The Pope spoke of past wars that had been waged between Christians and Muslims with both sides invoking God's name as if, the Pope said, killing the enemy could be pleasing to God.
The Pope said by working together, Muslims and Christians could "turn back the wave of cruel fanaticism that endangers the lives of so many people and hinders progress toward world peace".
He said the future depended on a dialogue between Christians and Muslims - and "cannot be reduced to an optional extra".
A day earlier, the Pope met German Jewish leaders during a visit to a synagogue in Cologne.
excerpt frpm ZENIT.org:
Benedict XVI called the years of the holocaust as the "darkest period of German and European history," and explained that "an insane racist ideology, born of neo-paganism, gave rise to the attempt, planned and systematically carried out by the regime, to exterminate European Jewry."
"The holiness of God was no longer recognized, and consequently contempt was shown for the sacredness of human life," said the Pope.
Rabbi Teitelbaum said that the visit of the Pope constitutes a positive step toward peace for all peoples of the world, and an eloquent sign against anti-Semitism.
It was only the second time a Pope has visited a Jewish place of worship, following Pope John Paul II's visit to a Rome synagogue in 1986.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later on Saturday, the Pope received an ecstatic welcome at an open-air prayer vigil at Marienfeld outside Cologne.
He told the crowd that there was "much that could be criticised in the Church".
"We know this and the Lord himself told us so: it is a net with good fish and bad fish," the pontiff said.
The Pope has bemoaned the waning role of the Church in Europe.
Vatican observers will be watching to see what sort of relationship he is able to establish with young Catholics, correspondents say.
Sunday is the final day of the Pope's first major foreign trip since his election in April. The engagement was originally scheduled for his predecessor.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4170204.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/4168042.stm |
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