FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
P°PE PAUL appealed to Catholic youth in a Palm Sunday sermon to become apostles of Christ, to a "corrupt" world instead of spending their energies in negative rebellion. Leading the world's Catholics in the start of Holy Week rites, the Pope spoke to thousands of people in St. Peter's Basilica and distributed palm and olive branches to about 50 of them, including several youths and cripples. He said: "An overriding need of novelty, originality and liberty propels the youthful spirit, and today often in a rebellious way. The vitality of the young is expressed in a negative way, and it is almost pleased with the disorders it knows how to provoke and the problems it knows how to arouse." But, the Pope said, young people must undertake the "delicate, difficult, unpopular" mission of revealing to the world that Christ "is the
Saviour of the world."
As he spoke, about 80 young people staged a sit-down strike just outside St. Peter's Square, calling for peace in Nigeria. and singing in English the hymn of the American Civil Rights movement, "We Shall Overcome."
MEANING OF SACRIFICE The young people remained seated with their placards as the Pope gave his blessing to the crowd in St. Peter's Square from his study window at noon. The Pope took no notice of them as he spoke of the meaning of Christ's sacrifice. The Pope's sermon came after a traditional ceremony in which priests read from the Gospel the story of Christ's entry into Jerusalem When crowds came forth to greet Him with palm branches, His Passion and His death on Calvary. In an address dedicated entirely to youth, the Pope said that among today's youth there was "a great unrest, a great
vivacity of forces and aspirations, that explodes in exuberant and often violent forms.
"An overriding need of novelty, originality and liberty propels the youthful spirit, and today often in a rebellious way the vitality of the young is expressed in a negative way, and it is almost pleased with the disorders it knows how to provoke and the problems it knows how to arouse." He accused rebellious young people of not caring or being aware of what should replace the things they were trying to overthrow. "What are we asking of you? Miracles? Extravagant and sensational actions? No, you are asked to be what you are—youths and Catholics." He said perhaps a certain shortcoming in education had caused some modern young people to confuse goodness with weakness, piety with human respect and Christian faith with private interest.
Pope's fund for South America
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