Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Youth called to 'lofty view' of sexuality

VATICAN CITY ­ Young people need help in avoiding a lifestyle where relationships and sexuality are trivialized, Pope Benedict said.

"The Church asks for everyone's collaboration, in particular from those who work in schools, to teach a lofty view of love and human sexuality," the pope said in a Jan. 14 speech.

The pope was talking to officials from the city and province of Rome and the Lazio region of Italy.

Young people today are looking for answers that can explain the human condition and the future of humanity as well as "for answers that can show them how to base their life on timeless values," he said.

URGENT TASK

Christianity offers a "loftier vision of humanity" and the Church can contribute much to the urgent task of teaching young people about relationships and sexuality, he said.

"It's necessary to avoid exposing adolescents and young people to ways that promote the trivialization of these fundamental dimensions of human existence," that is, the dimensions of human sexuality and love, he said.

The pope said when the Church says "no" to particular behaviours and lifestyles, "in reality it is saying 'yes' to life, to love lived in the truth of giving oneself to another, and to love that is open to life and is not closed up in a narcissistic view of the couple."

SHARED HAPPINESS

The Church "is convinced that only these choices may contribute to a lifestyle in which happiness is a shared good," he said.

The Church promotes an authentic form of truth that leads to true freedom and human growth, he said.

That truth includes a healthy sense of love, the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, and respect for life from its conception to its natural end, the pope said.

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 -- Western Catholic Reporter