"Western nations face a population crisis fuelled by "ruthless" commercial forces..." ...

...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 popularized 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."

"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."

"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 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."