The Italian Media's Reaction
ROME, AUGUST 22 (ZENIT.org).- World Youth Day stirred great interest among non-religious (and, in some cases, antireligious) commentators of the Italian media. However, many of them seemed to heave a sigh of relief that it has ended.
For Gian Franco Rusconi of «La Stampa» newspaper it was merely «a parish celebration of disproportionate dimensions.» A «microcosm of groups and tribes held together by an efficient organizational network and the desire for a faith experience, understood as participation, emotion, and sharing,» with a Pope who was «its accomplice.»
Stefano Rodota, a commentator normally hostile to religion, said in «La Repubblica» that the Catholic youths demonstrated their adherence to «an ideal full of ethics, culture, and politics,» from which, it should be noted, a teaching stems that touches agnostics directly: «If you wish to speak about youth today, the accent on cleanliness, morality, and even utopia must be rediscovered. A world of mediocre compromises and continuous deals causes the loss of the sense of civil mission, of an active citizenry.»
Rodota said that we must not be surprised «if the words of the Church and of its Pope seem to be the only thought opposed to a world in which the logic of the market is intolerant of any ties or control.»
However, in an article by Luigi Accattoli, the «Corriere della Sera,» the newspaper with the largest circulation, controlled by Italy's most important financial and industrial groups, contradicts the «prophecies» made on its own pages concerning the frailty of the Pope and concludes by betting on the future and the Pope who has convoked youths to a meeting in Toronto in two years' time.
In «Il Messagero,» Paolo Graldi points out that the Jubilee has uncovered «youths who act from the positive view of hope. Today we know that a significant part of humanity seeks the key to unlock their relation with the myteries of their own life in relgion.»
In «Il Giornale,» Antonio Socci preaches to ecclesiastics to beware of allowing themselves to be «carried away by euphoria.» He points out that «churches continue to be half-empty and that, to attribute an event like this to their own strategies and plans would not just be an error but a blasphemy.»
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