Ernesto Olivero, founder of the Youth Missionary Service (SERMIG), the organization responsible for the initiative, met the Pope personally at the end of today's General Audience. The most significant part of the message signed by the youth read: "when I am weak, then I know I am strong." After reading these words out loud, Olivero said to the Pope: "Holy Father, you are a friend of youth, friend of the future, enemy of fear, friend of God. Thank you for your old age!"

    At this point, the Holy Father interrupted him and said: "But I am not old."

    "That's true. You are very young. You are always with youth," SERMIG's founder said.

    The Pope was impressed by the long scroll and began to read some of the signatures. Speaking to the young lay missionaries, the Pontiff asked them to help their friends "to rediscover the incalculable gift of life and to use their great potential to do good."

    "Be credible signs of God's tenderness in this world that is facing the third millennium. Let your contagious enthusiasm and conviction in the logic of the Gospel touch those who are victims of a dangerous culture of violence, or who are living the exhilarating stage of youth in a banal way or in despair," the Holy Father exhorted.

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