... Analyzing today’s secular culture, Pope Benedict said, “There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom and tolerance are so often separated from truth. This is fueled by the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives.” The consequence of believing in relativism, the Holy Father observed, is that “practically everything” is indiscriminately given value, which makes "experience" all-important. “Yet, experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair,” the Pontiff told the youth. ... ... “Dear friends, life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose!” he proclaimed.
“Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy.”
Pope Benedict also tackled the dangers of materialism, exhorting the youth, “Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.” ...
... Although this worldview “presents itself as neutral, impartial and inclusive of everyone,” Pope Benedict explained that, “in reality, like every ideology, secularism imposes a world-view.”
The consequences of this type of living without God are that, “society will be shaped in a godless image, and debate and policy concerning the public good will be driven more by consequences than by principles grounded in truth,” Benedict warned.
He closed his address by noting that the “world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises.” ...
Though I am not a Christian, I deeply sympathize with Pope Benedict on these points.
Update - Pope Calls for a ‘New Age’ in Final Australia Mass:
“In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair,” he warned.
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