In Brazil, pope urges young to lead Christian lives

SAO PAULO, Brazil – As his strong comments against abortion and Catholic politicians who vote to legalize it continued to provoke debate, Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday urged Latin America’s youth to lead lives of prayer and faith and to resist “the snares of evil” that deprive them of true Christian happiness.

Tens of thousands of young people, traveling here from across South America, greeted the pope at Sao Paulo’s Pacaembu soccer stadium. He sat on a red and gold throne and watched a parade of samba dancers and musicians offering a display of Brazil’s indigenous cultures.

Benedict is on the second day of his first pilgrimage to the Americas, where he hopes to shore up the declining Catholic Church and its traditional family values on a continent with a more relaxed interpretation of family values.

The pope told his youthful audience to eschew premarital sex, to remain monogamous in marriage, to care for the elderly and to serve as examples of Christian conduct.

“Be men and women who are free and responsible; make the family a center that radiates peace and joy; be promoters of life, from its beginning to its natural end,” the pope said.

“Above all, have great respect for the institution of the sacrament of Matrimony. … Build your future hopes upon chastity.”

The encounter featured some of the more energetic, folkloric elements associated with the church here – and less common in the more subdued formalities of Rome. At one point, a young Brazilian priest grabbed onto a mike and led the crowd in chants like a cheerleader.

Benedict smiled at the entertainment, and drew boisterous applause when he saluted his audience with “um grande abraco bem Brasileiro” (a warm Brazilian embrace).

But soon his tone turned serious. Delivering a long speech in Portuguese, Benedict implored the assembled youths to become missionaries and “builders of a new society” based on Christian moral values.

“The Church needs you, as young people, to manifest to the world the face of Jesus Christ, visible in the Christian community,” he said. “Without this young face, the Church would appear disfigured.”

It was what some in the audience wanted to hear.

“The problem is the world has lost its values and the pope is trying to bring them back,” said Luigi Marson, a 19-year-old engineering student. “It’s the world that has everything backward, not the pope.”

Others, however, had trouble relating to the pope’s conservative message on morality, especially here in Brazil, where casual sex, out-of-wedlock births and abortions are common.

Watching on large screens erected outside the stadium, Cristiani Valeska de Albuquerque, 21, said she hoped the pope’s presence could help Sao Paulo rid itself of its high levels of prostitution and murderous violence. But much of what the pope said was simply not realistic, she said.

“Well I have a lot of respect for the pope, but if he wants us to not have sex before getting married, then that will never work,” Albuquerque said. “In fact, I’m living in sin. Everyone knows that men will never wait for that.”