Cradle Catholics haven't done enough to evangelize, pope says

Cradle Catholics haven't done
enough to show people that God exists and can bring true fulfillment to
everyone, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of his former students.

"We, who have been able to know (Christ) since our youth, may we ask
forgiveness because we bring so little of the light of his face to
people; so little certainty comes from us that he exists, he's present
and he is the greatness that everyone is waiting for," the pope said.

The pope presided at a Mass Aug. 28 in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome,
during his annual meeting with students who did their doctorates with
him when he was a professor in Germany.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, a regular participant
in the Ratzinger Schulerkreis (Ratzinger student circle), gave the
homily at the Mass, but the pope made remarks at the beginning of the
liturgy.

The Vatican released the text of the pope's remarks Aug. 29.

Pope Benedict highlighted the day's reading in Psalm 63 in which the
soul thirsts for God "in a land parched, lifeless and without water.

He asked God to show himself to today's world, which is marked by God's
absence and where "the land of souls is arid and dry, and people still
don't know where the living water comes from."

May God let people who are searching for water elsewhere know that the
only thing that will quench their thirst is God himself and that he
would never let "people's lives, their thirst for that which is great,
for fulfillment, drown and suffocate in the ephemeral," the pope told
his former students.

However, it also is up to Christians to make God known to the world, the
pope said, and older generations may not have done their best.

"We want to ask (God) to forgive us, that he renew us with the living
water of his spirit and that he helps us to celebrate properly the
sacred mysteries," he said.

The formal discussions of the "schulerkreis" this year focused on the new evangelization.

The closed-door seminar was held Aug. 25-28 in the papal residence of
Castel Gandolfo and was attended by 40 people, reported L'Osservatore
Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

The pope chose two speakers to give lectures: Hanna-Barbara
Gerl-Falkovitz, a female German theologian and professor, and Otto
Neubauer, director of the Emmanuel Community's academy for
evangelization in Vienna.

The lectures were followed by discussion among the participants, including the pope.

Summarizing the discussions for L'Osservatore Romano Aug. 27, Cardinal
Schonborn said participants felt that recent World Youth Day events in
Madrid represented a fresh "boost of renewed hope" for the church.

He said older generations have suffered by first living their faith at a
time when church life was thriving, and today they are watching
parishes lose so many parishioners.

But, today's young Catholics seem to realize they are a minority in a
secular, relativistic world and have shown their "undaunted willingness
to give witness to their peers in such an environment," he said.

Seminar participants saw the so-called "John Paul II and Benedict XVI
generations" as a whole new phase for the church. No one thought young
Catholics would be so open to being in "the courtyard of the Gentiles"
to evangelize, said the cardinal.

He said the meeting also reflected on how to spread the Gospel in a
secular world that nonetheless "shows that it is waiting to receive anew
the Gospel message."

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