The Pope had realistic, hopeful words for the German bishops:
This means being a Church open to the future, and therefore one full of promise for coming generations. Young people, in fact, are not looking for a Church which panders to youth but one which is truly young in spirit; a Church completely open to Christ, the new Man. This is the commitment that we wish to make today, at this truly significant moment, at the conclusion of this great event for youth, an event which has forced us to think about the future of the Church and of society. It is in this positive and hope-filled light that we can confidently confront the most difficult issues facing the Church in Germany. Once again young people are providing us, their Pastors, with a salutary stimulus, for they are asking us to be consistent, united and courageous. We for our part must train them in patience, in discernment, in healthy realism. Yet there can be no false compromise, no watering down of the Gospel.
Dear Brothers, the experience of the last twenty years has taught us that every World Youth Day represents a kind of new beginning for the pastoral care of young people in the host country. Preparing for the event mobilizes people and resources and celebrating it brings about a surge of enthusiasm that needs to be channelled in the best possible way. It contains enormous potential energy which can grow greater the wider it spreads. Here I am thinking of parishes, lay associations, movements; and of priests, religious, catechists and youth workers. I imagine that in Germany an enormous number of them have been involved in this event. I pray that for everyone it will be the occasion of a real growth in love for Christ and for the Church, and I encourage all to continue to cooperate, in a renewed spirit of service, for the improved pastoral care of young people.
And then he gets very specific about the real challenges facing German society and the pastoral required in the face of it.
More on German Catholicism:
A Letter to the Editor of America, not available on line, but reading in part:
I am afraid I belong to those who believe that Germany, and most of Western Europe for that matter, is indeed experiencing something like “de-Christianization.” And here are the facts: 11 percent of all Germans and 15 percent of registered Catholics attend church every Sunday, down from 22 percent in 1990 and 50 percent in 1950. Fewer than half of all children are baptized in a Christian denomination; in the urban centers of Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin, only one in 10 children is baptized. The church is scoring only with funerals: 92 percent of Catholics who died in 2003 had a Catholic funeral.
To be sure, Germans are not exactly atheists. According to a poll in April 2005, some 65 percent of Germans believe “in some kind of God,” and 59 percent believe that they can “directly talk to God through prayer.” But most Germans see faith as a private matter that has little or nothing to do with the church. Only 7 percent say that faith needs to be experienced in the community of the church. Sixty-one percent say that they do not believe in the church’s teachings.
Among my German friends and colleagues, I know very few who go to church. Most German intellectuals have an aggressive attitude toward the church in general and toward the Catholic Church in particular. A while ago there was a lot of laughter in our company about a co-worker who had admitted to praying with her kids at night. Almost everybody, it seemed, found that totally ridiculous. And when I got married in church a few years ago, many of my friends asked me: “Why do you do that? Are you doing it for your parents? Or is it because you want to have a nice ceremony?”
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