Holy Father's Christmas Address to the Roman Curia

I like to keep an eye on the Pope's Christmas address to his collaborators in the Roman Curia. Remember, it was in the context of his first such address that he coined the term Hermeneutic of Continuity.
Well, this year's address (link to Italian version) was interesting, with the Pope making a number of sharp points. Rocco analyses what he had to say about World Youth Day.

"The uniquness of the [World Youth] days and the particular character of their joy, their creative force of communion, can find no explanation. Above all it's important to take into account the fact that the World Youth Days do not consist solely in just the one week where they're publicly rendered visible to the world. It is a long road, interior and exterior, that leads to them. The Cross, accompanied by the image of the Mother of the Lord, makes a pilgrimage across countries. Faith, in its way, needs to see and touch. The encounter with the cross, which comes to be touched and carried, becomes an internal encounter with the One who took up the cross and died for us. The encounter with the Cross sustains in the soul of the young the memory of that God who wanted to make himself man and suffer alongside us. And we see the woman given us as our Mother. The solemn Days are but the culmination of a long road, along which we find one another and go together to encounter Christ. Not just in Australia did the long Via Crucis cross the city and become the culminating event of these days. It likewise reflected again all that happened in the years preceding it and pointed to Him who reunites together all of us: that God who so loved us even to the Cross. So, too, the Pope is not the star around which it all unfolds. He is totally and merely the Vicar. He returns to the Other who is in our midst. Finally the solemn liturgy is the center of this togetherness, for in it comes that which we cannot realize and which, still, we are always awaiting. He is present. He enters among us. The heavens are torn and the earth is made luminous. It's this that renders life light and open and unites the many ones with others in a joy that is incomparable with the ecstasy of a rock festival. Frederich Nietzsche once said: "The ability is not in organizing a party, but in finding the people able to bring it joy." According to Scripture, joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit (cf Gal 5:22): this fruit was abundantly perceivable in the days of Sydney. And just as a long road precedes the World Youth Days, a path following it is likewise drawn. Friendships are formed that encourage a different lifestyle and that sustain it from inside. The great days have, not an ending, but the scope of sustaining these friendships and of making places of life in the faith rise in the world where, together, hope and love can be seen.

And what's the subtext? Rocco speculates as follows:

During WYD Sydney, a leader of the Aussie branch of the Society of St Pius X -- the schismatic traditionalist group -- knocked the weeklong event as a "happy party" with "very little that is truly holy and sacred and prayerful" in it.

Interesting! WYD 2000 in Rome was a crucial event for myself personally and a major help in encouraging me to pursue my priestly vocation.
Also of interest is the following passage:

Poiché la fede nel Creatore è una parte essenziale del Credo cristiano, la Chiesa non può e non deve limitarsi a trasmettere ai suoi fedeli soltanto il messaggio della salvezza. Essa ha una responsabilità per il creato e deve far valere questa responsabilità anche in pubblico. E facendolo deve difendere non solo la terra, l’acqua e l’aria come doni della creazione appartenenti a tutti. Deve proteggere anche l’uomo contro la distruzione di se stesso. È necessario che ci sia qualcosa come una ecologia dell’uomo, intesa nel senso giusto. Non è una metafisica superata, se la Chiesa parla della natura dell’essere umano come uomo e donna e chiede che quest’ordine della creazione venga rispettato. Qui si tratta di fatto della fede nel Creatore e dell’ascolto del linguaggio della creazione, il cui disprezzo sarebbe un’autodistruzione dell’uomo e quindi una distruzione dell’opera stessa di Dio. Ciò che spesso viene espresso ed inteso con il termine "gender", si risolve in definitiva nella autoemancipazione dell’uomo dal creato e dal Creatore. L’uomo vuole farsi da solo e disporre sempre ed esclusivamente da solo ciò che lo riguarda. Ma in questo modo vive contro la verità, vive contro lo Spirito creatore. Le foreste tropicali meritano, sì, la nostra protezione, ma non la merita meno l’uomo come creatura, nella quale è iscritto un messaggio che non significa contraddizione della nostra libertà, ma la sua condizione. Grandi teologi della Scolastica hanno qualificato il matrimonio, cioè il legame per tutta la vita tra uomo e donna, come sacramento della creazione, che lo stesso Creatore ha istituito e che Cristo – senza modificare il messaggio della creazione – ha poi accolto nella storia della salvezza come sacramento della nuova alleanza. Fa parte dell’annuncio che la Chiesa deve recare la testimonianza in favore dello Spirito creatore presente nella natura nel suo insieme e in special modo nella natura dell’uomo, creato ad immagine di Dio. Partendo da questa prospettiva occorrerebbe rileggere l’Enciclica Humanae vitae: l’intenzione di Papa Paolo VI era di difendere l’amore contro la sessualità come consumo, il futuro contro la pretesa esclusiva del presente e la natura dell’uomo contro la sua manipolazione.

In brief, the Pope is reminding us that the Church has a responsibility for creation. However, this isn't only about protecting the environment - we are also called to develop an "ecology of man" whereby we stop ourselves from destroying ourselves. Central to this understanding of humanity is the Church's recognition of the relationship between man and woman. The reduction of 'gender' to the status of a social construct is to ignore God's plan and the fact that God speaks to us through creation - man being the image of God, for example, and the analogy between marriage and the covenant.

I'll try and post an English translation of the more important bits when it's available.