FYI: Novinite, a Sofia-based news agency, reported today that when Pope Benedict met Wednesday after the general audience with the president of the Atlantic Club in Bulgaria and former Foreign Affairs Minister Solomon Passy, he accepted Passy’s invitation to visit Bulgaria in 2014. Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the first meeting of representatives of the Atlantic Club with Pope John Paul II.

Culture council president Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, known for his acumen vis-à-vis social networks, is an avid twitter follower. He is inviting young people to send questions and comments on emerging youth cultures to him for the duration of the council's plenary that ends Feb. 8, using the twitter hashtag # Reply2Ravasi.

Following are some powerful words by Pope Benedict about today’s young people, the present, the future and the hope of the Church and the world.

A WORLD THAT DOES NOT GIVE THE YOUNG A FUTURE RISKS NOT HAVING A FUTURE

Members and consultors of the Pontifical Council for Culture are in Rome for the annual four-day plenary session that this year examines the theme, "Emerging Youth Cultures." Last night – the only night of the plenary assembly open to the public - the council offered a rock concert, featuring the Italian group “The Sun” who performed in the auditorium of Rome’s LUMSA university, not far from the council’s Via della Conciliazione offices.

The 2013 plenary is studying "youth issues" on the different continents in the hopes that, by learning more about this ever-evolving and changing reality, the Church’s pastoral care can proposes the right answers to emerging questions and challenges.

The plenary is looking at youth and employment, the digital culture, the so-called "emotional alphabet" of youth, the value of the body, friendship networks, and the delay in attaining self-sufficiency. Three young adults from different continents are offering reflections on the reasons for having confidence in today’s youth for the potential, the incredible creativity, the spirit of volunteering and altruism that characterize them. Participants will also focus on "generating the faith. … The fatigue, and at times failure, of ecclesial practices that widen the gap between young persons and the Church needs to be understood.”

The web site of the pontifical council says the plenary analysis is of adolescent and youth cultures between the ages of 15 and 29 years, a period marked by complexity, fragmented into different types, with no single or homogeneous model. Its variety depends on the influences of family and economic factors, on social environment, formative capital and hyper-stimulation, and the enormous communicative possibilities of emerging visual cultures. Listening to the new generations and considering their situation is a valuable opportunity and a must for adults and for Christian communities.

Council president, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, known for his acumen vis-à-vis social networks, is an avid twitter follower. He is inviting young people to send questions and comments on emerging youth cultures to him for the duration of the Plenary, using the twitter hashtag # Reply2Ravasi.

This morning, Benedict XVI received participants in the plenary assembly and expressed his hope that their work will be fruitful and will contribute to "the Church's work in the lives of young people, which is a complex and articulated reality that can no longer be understood from within a homogeneous cultural basis but only on a horizon … that is made up of a plurality of viewpoints, perspectives and strategies."

The Holy Father noted the "widespread climate of instability" that is affecting the cultural, political and economic areas, pointing to the difficulty young people have in finding employment which has psychological and relational repercussions. "The uncertainty and fragility that characterize so many young people,” said the Pope, “often pushes them to the margins, making them almost invisible and absent from society's cultural and historical processes.”

He stressed that “the affective and emotional sphere, … strongly affected by this climate… gives birth to apparently contradictory phenomena like the ‘spectacularization’ of private life and a narcissistic selfishness. Even the religious dimension, the experience of faith and membership in the Church are often lived from an individualistic and emotional perspective."

The Pope then pointed to what he called “positive data,” such as “volunteering, profound and sincere faith experiences, … the efforts undertaken, in many parts of the world, to build societies capable of respecting the freedom and dignity of others, beginning with the smallest and weakest. All of this," he emphasized, "consoles us and helps us to draw a more accurate and objective picture of youth cultures.”

He said the Church can no longer deal in clichés about young people, or analyze them using data that are based on outdated and inadequate cultural categories. “We are facing a very complex but fascinating reality that must be thoroughly understood and loved with great empathy, a reality wherein we must pay very close attention to the bottom lines and to what is to come."

Benedict XVI said, “If young people no longer had hopes, if they no longer progressed, if they no longer infused historical dynamics with their energy, their vitality, their ability to anticipate the future, we would find a humanity turned in on itself, lacking confidence and a positive outlook towards the future.”

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