Important quotes from the Pope

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world-youth-day/pope-warns-against-the-lure-of-false-idols/2008/07/17/1216163059279.html


He spoke of his daunting flight from Rome to Sydney and the view from the plane of "the sparkle of the Mediterranean, the grandeur of the North African desert, the lushness of Asia's forestation, the vastness of the Pacific … and the majestic splendour of Australia's natural beauty, which I have been able to enjoy these last couple of days".

The 81-year-old voiced strong regret that these resources were in danger and warned Earth's natural resources were being squandered to fuel "insatiable consumption".

And though the images of his arrival were being broadcast to an international audience of more than 1billion people, he had a warning for the internet and television generation. "In our personal lives and in our communities we can encounter a hostility, something dangerous, a poison which threatens to corrode what is good, reshape who we are, and distort the purpose for which we have been created.

"Examples abound, as you yourselves know. Among the more prevalent are alcohol and drug abuse, and the exaltation of violence and sexual degradation often presented through television and the internet as entertainment."

He told the young people not to be fooled by those "who see you as just another consumer in market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty and subjective experience displaces truth."

The Pope railed against domestic violence and abortion, asking, "How can it be that domestic violence torments so many mothers and children? How can it be that the most wondrous and sacred human space, the womb, has become a place of unutterable violence?

"Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses and the pain of false promises."