applause are still going…

response from bishops
in preparation for visit, bishops have been meditating and now have
3 questions are being presented

1) one of hte great challenges in our materialistc societies, the young are demonstrating evidence of need for community but still have popular atheism….what is your assessment in increasing secularism and increasing intellectualism adn how to do this pastorally and how to evangelize…

POPE RESPONDS: secularism is one of hte greatest challenges of our time, not just in the US, but every where…it’s different everywhere, but in America…essential understanding of autonomy, but it cannot be separate from God. America’s brand of secularism is special, it respects the expression but it can speak to the lowest common denominator. Growing separation from life and faith…living as if God does not exist after sunday mass. Youth pick and choose and leave social orphans and abandon the law of Christ. Consequently, christians are easily transformed to the spirit of the age. on a deeper level, secularism challenges the church to reaffirm in and to the world the intrinsic gospel of natural law and the gospel. in pursuit of individual liberty, the church must present and address the positive terms of FREEDOM and liberation. teh gospel must be preached as a way of life and must be attractive, practical, and relative to problems in teh home, not a chain of human freedom. the us church is challenged with the reality of the faith and presenting it in a positive way to the youth. much remains to be done in parishes, schools, and churches.