Pope laments abandonment of religion

POPE BENEDICT lamented the widespread abandonment of religion in Western countries at a Holy Thursday ceremony, saying the heartlands of Christianity were turning away from their faith.

The German-born Pontiff said during the service at St Peter’s Basilica that it sometimes seemed as if the West had become bored by its own history and culture.

“Have not we — the people of God — become to a large extent a people of unbelief and distance from God?” he said during the service in which he blessed oils to be used in Catholic rites.