Pope Benedict’s warning for our age

“You see, man strives for eternal joy; he would like pleasure in the extreme, would like what is eternal. But when there is no God, it is not granted to him and it cannot be. Then he himself must now create something that is fictitious, a false eternity.” — Pope Benedict XVI

Every human heart longs for joy without end. We are not satisfied with passing pleasures; we want what lasts forever. Yet when God is removed from the horizon, eternity slips out of reach. The desire does not vanish—it mutates. Man tries to build “false eternities,” counterfeits of heaven that promise happiness but cannot deliver.

This craving becomes restless, unable to be content with reality. And from this restlessness, Pope Benedict warns, arise destructive forces: arrogance, boredom, and a false idea of freedom. The result is what he calls a “devil’s paradise.”

Drugs, sex tourism, consumerism—these are not just personal vices. They are entire counterfeit worlds, whole systems that consume lives, families, and nations. Addiction fuels industries that exhaust whole countries. Exploitation of youth and sex tourism ravage generations. Consumerism turns entire societies into slaves of appetite.

“It is as if an evil monster had its hand on the country,” Benedict says, “corrupting the people, destroying youth, tearing apart families, leading to violence, and endangering the future of entire nations.”

This is more than a moral warning; it is a prophetic one. False eternities do not remain private—they devour cultures.

What, then, is the Christian answer? Benedict insists:

• The eternity man seeks comes only from God.
• God alone is the first necessity to withstand the afflictions of this time.
• Christians must not only proclaim this truth, but live it—embodying the eternity we have already begun to taste in Christ.

This is a sign of our times. It is also our challenge. The choice before us is stark: either false eternities that enslave, or the true eternity that saves. Only in God does our restless desire find its home—and only in Him can nations be healed from the monster that devours them.

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