To be sure, a youth center that merely offers games and something to drink would be absolutely superfluous. The point of an oratory really has to be cultural formation, the formation of a human and Christian personality, which must become a mature personality. In this regard we’re absolutely in agreement. It seems to me that today there’s a cultural poverty in which we know so many things, but without a heart, without any interior connection, because a common vision of the world is lacking. For that reason, a cultural solution inspired by the faith of the church, by the awareness of God which it has given us, is absolutely necessary. I would say that this is precisely the function of a youth center: To offer not only something to do in one’s spare time, but above all to offer an integral human formation that makes the personality complete.

Therefore, the priest as educator must be himself well-formed and located within the culture of today, rich in culture, in order to help young people enter into a culture inspired by the faith. I would add, naturally, that in the end the point of orientation for every culture is God, the God present in Christ. We see today that there are persons with great knowledge, but without interior orientation. In this way, for example, science can even be dangerous, because without deep ethical orientations, it leaves the person exposed to the arbitrary, and hence, without the orientations necessary in order to become really human. In this sense, the heart of all cultural formation, which is certainly necessary, must without doubt be the faith: To know the face of God who is revealed in Christ, and thus to have the point of orientation for all the other cultures too, which may be equally confused and confusing. A culture without personal knowledge of God, and without knowledge of the face of God in Christ, is a culture that can become destructive because it doesn’t have the necessary ethic orientations. In this sense, it seems to me, we really have a deep mission of cultural and human formation, one which opens up to all the riches of the culture of our time – but one which also offers a criterion for discerning what is true culture, and what could become anti-culture.

(Benedict XVI, Q&A With Priests of Rome, 26 Feb 2009)