April 09, 2006
Reuters reports on Pope Benedict's sermon.
Speaking on a brilliantly sunny day to tens of thousands of people, the Pope weaved his sermon around the contrast between material and spiritual riches and the relationship between personal freedom and responsibility.
After blessing palm and olive branches -- symbols of peace -- he called for people around the world to undergo "a purification of hearts" to help heal what he said was a "lacerated world".
He urged them to look to Christ for help to "overcome the corruption and selfishness which is devastating the world today".
Christ's message, he said was "not to respond to an injustice with another injustice, to violence with another violence, but to remind us that evil can only be overcome with good, not with another evil."
Palm Sunday also marked this year's World Day of Youth, which is held in local dioceses each year and at an international venue about every three years in the presence of the Pope.
The last international day was in August in the Pope's native Germany; the next will be in 2008 in Sydney, Australia.
The Pope, wearing red and white vestments, urged the young people not to give in to the temptations of worldly riches and moral irresponsibility.
"All this sounds convincing and seductive but it is the language of the serpent," he said, referring to the Biblical story where Eve was convinced by the devil in the form of a snake to disobey God.
At the service, young people from Germany handed over to those from Australia a large wooden cross to take the Sydney.
The Pope said their journey would symbolise their attempt to spread peace "across continents and cultures, across a world lacerated and tormented by violence."
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