The pope said traditional family values and Sunday rest were key to escaping the ills of modern society and reached out to divorced people Sunday at a mass to close the World Meeting of Families in Milan.

Welcomed by 850,000 flag-waving pilgrims gathered at Bresso airport, Pope Benedict XVI looked tired but cheerful as he drove through the crowds in his pope-mobile, stopping several times to wave to children and kiss babies.

“Dear families, despite the relentless rhythms of the modern world, do not lose a sense of the Lord’s day,” the pope said, describing the tradition of resting on a Sunday as “an oasis in which to pause… and celebrate the family.”

He lamented the modern-day “utilitarian concept of work, production and the market,” which “brings in its wake ferocious competition, strong inequalities, degradation of the environment, the race for consumer goods, family tensions.”

Particularly in a period of economic crisis and social unease, families should celebrate Sunday as “the day of man and his values: conviviality, friendship, solidarity, culture, closeness to nature, play, sport,” he said.

From a meeting with young pilgrims in Milan’s San Siro football stadium to a celebration with thousands in front of the city’s multi-spired Gothic Cathedral, the pope has used the family throughout the event as a tool to boost mores that the Church sees as under threat.

“We have been given the task of building church communities that are more and more like families… based on a marriage between man and woman,” he told pilgrims gathered together from 154 countries, in a reference to the West’s increasing openness to unconventional families.

Full Story: Hundreds of thousands gather for pope family mass

Source: Daily News Pages