ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, May. 17, 2007

Papal youth appeal is about the message as well as the man
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

It is a familiar ritual now: The pope visits a foreign country, stages a youth
rally attended by throngs of exuberant fans and journalists pronounce his
appearance a flop.

The latest example came out of Brazil last week. Some 40,000 young people
packed a soccer stadium in Sao Paulo to see Pope Benedict XVI, and an overflow
crowd of tens of thousands more gathered outside to catch a glimpse of him on
jumbo screens. Benedict answered their enthusiasm by exhorting them to reject
materialism and hedonism, embrace purity and prayer and devote themselves to
building strong families and defending human life in all its stages.

It was the sort of pointed, politically incorrect address that makes many
pundits cringe. American and European newspaper journalists covering the event
reminded their readers that young people may applaud Benedict, but they do not
actually pay attention to what he says. The proof in nearly every report was
the same: an obligatory quote from a teenage critic who disagrees with Benedict
about condom distribution or pre-marital sex.

Benedict's critics have plenty of company. But it seems odd that journalists
attending papal youth rallies that attract tens of thousands of cheering young
people regularly quote only disgruntled teenagers in their reports. If the pope
is a bore and young people find his message irrelevant, why do so many of them
flock to hear it?

Some observers credit a cult of personality. That was a favored
explanation for Pope John Paul II's phenomenal rapport with young people. His
youth gatherings routinely drew hundreds of thousands, even millions, from
around the world. John Paul used these rallies to praise countercultural Gospel
values and call young people to strict moral standards. Yet pundits said his
charisma, not his message, was the draw.

That explanation was definitively debunked in 2005, when John Paul's shy and
scholarly successor hosted his first World Youth Day in Germany. Though many
expected a poor showing for the first papal youth rally without John Paul,
Benedict drew an enthusiastic crowd of 1 million pilgrims from nearly 200
countries. The concluding Mass was the largest religious service in Germany's
history and one of the largest in World Youth Day history. Benedict's subdued
style was a distinct departure from his predecessor's, but the youthful crowd
wasted no time in adopting a chant for him ("Ben-e-det-to"). Live television
coverage of the event found most audience members listening attentively to his
homily, applauding his remarks and expressing admiration for their new shepherd.

Benedict has won that admiration not in spite of his message but because of it.
While many leaders today regard the young as bundles of hormones incapable of
sacrifice or self-restraint, Benedict views them as souls longing for goodness
and God. He tells them that the restlessness they feel — the persistent longing
that no amount of money, power, or pleasure can seem to satisfy — is not a
curse. It is a reminder that they were created for more than the consumption of
goods and satisfaction of appetites. You were created for love, Benedict tells
them, the kind of love that finds its fulfillment in service to others.

Benedict's message is as demanding as John Paul's was, and many young people
struggle to put it into practice. Yet they are listening. Amid the cacophony of
their materialistic media-saturated lives, they are flocking to him just as
they did to John Paul, and they are listening.

Perhaps something about Benedict's message echoes their own deepest desires and
confirms their suspicion that popular opinion is no substitute for a wise elder
willing to tell them unpopular truths.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television host, and St. Louis-based
fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.