Western societies are losing their souls to scientific rationality and frightening believers in the developing world who still fear God, Pope Benedict told an open-air mass in Germany on Sunday.
Benedict, on the second day of a visit to his native Bavaria, said that spreading the word of Jesus Christ was more important than all the emergency and development aid that rich churches like that in Germany gave to poor countries.
He also stressed the role of faith in fighting AIDS "by realistically facing its deeper causes," indirectly confirming the Church view that pre-marital abstinence and fidelity in marriage are the way to combat sexually transmitted diseases.
About 250,000 faithful, many of them families with children, gathered at the fairground for the mass. "I've been here since five o'clock in the morning," said Kerstin Gessert, 32, from Karlsruhe. "I think it's important that he has come." Wearing resplendent green and white vestments, the Pope addressed the crowd from a huge platform covered by a white canopy. Some in the crowd wore traditional Bavarian folk dress.
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