(ANS – Rocca di Papa) – Between 29 March and 1 April various people involved in Youth Ministry  from around the world met together at Rocca di Papa, near Rome, to reflect on World Youth Day (WYD) in Madrid 2011 and to prepare for WYD in Rio de Janeiro 2013. At the meeting, called by the Pontifical  Council for the Laity, taking part as a speaker was Fr Fabio Attard, General Councillor for Youth Ministry.

About 300 representatives of Church movements, groups and communities took part. In addition to assessing the first results from the WYD in Madrid and examining the aims and the challenges of WYD in Rio, they also considered the relationship between young people and the Church. Fr Attard spoke on this issue.

In his first contribution,  the Salesian Councillor presented the challenges to Youth Ministry at continental level, as well as that to education in a globalised context. This was done from the point of view of the steps being taken in the different Churches in the various continents, taking account of the reflection undertaken in recent years at the continental synods.

The second intervention, then was reflection on the urgent need to discover the roots of youth ministry from two angles: the need to recognise and interpret well the signs of the times and listen to what the young have to say; and the need not to lose the precious and  profound patrimony that the Church has been offering in recent decades through the  synods and other basic documents.

Fr Attard gave a summary of the salient points of the teaching of Benedict XVI, together with  a pastoral framework which emerges from a close reading of the talks given by the Pope in his meetings with the young. “What Benedict XVI has to say is not only something good for the benefit of the young, but in his teaching we can find a pastoral methodology that is clear, consistent and simple, and which is in harmony with that search for meaning which the young are pursuing nowadays,” he declared.

Those taking part concluded their time together at the celebration of Palm Sunday in St Peter’s Square at which the Pope presided.

Published 02/04/2012