Pope Benedict started his tenure with a strong sermon in which he nailed the source of the world’s major problems: the great void in people’s spirit:
"There are so many kinds of desert," he said, taking up the main theme
of his powerful homily. "There is the desert of poverty, the desert of
hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of
destroyed love."There is the desert of God’s darkness, the emptiness of souls
no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The
external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts
have become so vast."