Benedict attacks ‘consumer’ religion

POPE Benedict XVI yesterday criticised an “explosion” in religious consumerism and those profiting from it.

He spoke at a Mass in Cologne attended by up to one million pilgrims celebrating the World Youth Day festival.

The 78-year-old Pope, referring to the growth of new sects, said there was “a kind of new explosion of religion” that if pushed too far, turned religion into “almost a consumer product”.

Issuing a staunch defence of the everyday practice of religion, he warned the young multinational crowd that constructing religion on a “do-it-yourself” basis would prove fruitless.

He said there is a “strange forgetfulness of God,” while at same time frustration and dissatisfaction has led to a “new explosion of religion”.

“I have no wish to discredit all the manifestations of this phenomenon. There may be sincere joy in the discovery,” he said.

“Yet, if it is pushed too far, religion becomes almost a consumer product. People choose what they like, and some are even able to make a profit from it.

“But religion constructed on a ‘do-it-yourself’ basis cannot ultimately help us. Help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ.

“It may be comfortable, but at times of crisis we are left to ourselves.”

He urged young people to regularly attend Sunday Mass.

“If you make the effort, you will realise that this is what gives a proper focus to your free time,” he said.

During the four-day visit to the Catholic festival, his first foreign trip since he was elected on April 19, the German-born Pope showed a public style more subdued than that of his charismatic predecessor, John Paul II.

Benedict avoided some of John Paul’s exuberant habits like kissing the ground on arrival and swaying to music during public appearances.

He read speeches in a soft voice sometimes inaudible in the crowd, smiled shyly and waved as if in amazement at all the attention.

The faithful, however, seemed to love him all the more for his reticent ways and cheered wildly every time he appeared in public.

Benedict made clear he intends to continue John Paul’s efforts to engage in dialogue with Jews and Muslims by holding two major interfaith meetings.

He found warm applause during his visit to Cologne’s synagogue, where he warned of rising anti-Semitism and stressed the shared inheritance of Jews and Christians. It was only the second papal visit to a Jewish house of worship, after John Paul’s groundbreaking visit to a Rome synagogue in 1986.

His remarks to Muslims, while friendly, were blunter, as he condemned the “cruel fanaticism” of terrorism and stressed Muslim elders’ responsibility to educate the younger generation in the ways of peace.

He differed from John Paul by not stressing church teaching against premarital sex and condoms, which the last Pope frequently said to young people.

He also didn’t commit to attending the next World Youth Day, as John Paul always did.