WESTERN nations face a population crisis fuelled by "ruthless" commercial forces, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney has warned. Cardinal George Pell, speaking after the Pope's arrival in Sydney for World Youth Day (WYD), said Western nations were producing too few children as the institutions of marriage and procreation came under attack.
The arrival of Pope Benedict XVI has revived questions about the future and relevance of the Catholic church.
Dr Pell, speaking at a press conference to welcome the pontiff and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Sydney, warned of a crisis if young people continued to accept views popularised through advertising.
"There is a crisis in the Western world," said Dr Pell, the head of the Catholic church in Australia.
"No Western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable. In many cases there is an increase in divorces, an increase in serial monogamy."
Dr Pell said Australia faced two challenges.
"One is the Australian temptation to believe that you can have a good, happy life without God," he said.
"And the second challenge revolves around the concept of sexuality, marriage and family.
"Ruthless commercial forces are telling young people that this is the way forward, this is the modern way and they remain total silent on the difficulties and damage this does to family life."
Dr Pell also addressed the high level of youth suicide in Australia.
"It's a danger sign. It's a great paradox," he said.
"We have a wonderful society here in Australia, in many ways a lot of justice, and yet we have the third or fourth highest rate of youth male suicide in the world."
The archbishop said faith in religion, not pre-marital sex or drugs, would help prevent people taking their own lives.
"The basic Christian response to that is to say that our young people need faith and hope and love, and that we will make the situation worse by irresponsibly encouraging them into promiscuity or drugs or alcohol," Dr Pell said.
"That's only a prison. There's no escape if people flee resolutely in that direction."
Dr Pell was asked if the Catholic church in Australia would capitalise on the success of WYD once the event had concluded next week.
"If the spirit blows strongly, we can't be quite sure what sorts of initiatives will come up from the young people that they might want to do," he said.
"So I've insisted very much in Sydney that we don't put a rigid framework in place which we can't adapt."
Dr Pell said he had scheduled a meeting of Catholic youth leaders later in the year and the church was in the process of purchasing a retreat centre in Sydney to develop future leaders in the church.
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