Wave on World Youth

I was watching the mass in Cologne last night, led by Cardinal Meisner. The German President showed up to give a speech to the assembled youth. In their exuberance for the event they interrupted his speech with a wave that kept travelling around the stadium accompanied by cheering. For what seemed to be several minutes the President could not speak. This seems like bad manners and disrespectful.

On the other hand, I listened to the speech by the President. Maybe the youth did, too. Not once did he mention Jesus Christ. Not once did he mention the Mass. He talked about networking, meeting new friends, cross-border dialogue, Catholic AND protestant dialogue, etc. He did mention the Creator once that I heard. He might as well have said the "Archtect of the Universe". His solution was not God, but government.

Basically, secularism came to speak at the Catholic Mass. It would have been politically incorrect for him to speak about a specific god. This is the same country, who as part of the European Union would not entertain John Paul II's request to at least mention Europe's Christian heritage. Though it was impressive that the President of Germany attended the event, what he said was not too impressive.

Maybe the youth had it right, after all. Maybe they were listening. Wave on World Youth.