ROME, August 16, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an interview on Vatican radio Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of his hopes for World Youth Day. Asked what he would like to transmit to the youth of the world, the Pope relied, “I would like to show them how beautiful it is to be Christian, because the widespread idea which continues to exist is that Christianity is composed of laws and bans which one has to keep and, hence, is something toilsome and burdensome – that one is freer without such a burden.”
“I want to make clear,” the Pontiff continued, “that it not a burden to be carried, with great love and realization, it is like having wings. It is wonderful to be a Christian with this knowledge that it gives us a great breadth, a large community: As Christians we are never alone – in the sense that God is always with us, but also in the sense that we are always standing together in a large community, a community for The Way, that we have a project for the future – and in this way a Being which is worth believing in. This is the joy of being a Christian and is the beauty of believing.”
The Pope also expressed great hopes for Germany and Europe as the youth inspired by World Youth Day spreads the Gospel. Pope Benedict hopes for “a wave of new faith among young people – especially the youth in Germany and Europe. He added, “We still have large Christian institutions in Germany. Many Christian things occur, but there is also a great fatigue and we are so concerned with structural questions that the zest and the joy of faith are missing. If this zest, this joy, to know Christ would came alive again and gave the Church in Germany and Europe a new dynamic, then I think the aim of World Youth Day would be achieved.”
During the interview the Pope also expressed his firm belief and thanks that God arranged that his first public trip would be a visit to his native Germany.“Then there is also the fact that providence wanted my first trip abroad to take me to Germany,” he said.“I would not have dared to have initiated it. But if the Almighty God decides to do something like that to you, then one can only be delighted.”
Read the transcript of the English translation of the interview:
https://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/benedict_XVI_itv.asp
Hear the interview in the original German:
https://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/ram-us/itv_bxvi_deu1.ram
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