Pope decries collapse of marriages at festival

? Pope Benedict XVI decried the collapse of marriages, telling tens of thousands of young Catholics Saturday that he was praying that a crisis in traditional family values doesn’t become an “irreversible failure.”

Benedict urged an estimated 300,000 young pilgrims who trekked to Loreto for a weekend rally to have faith that they can succeed in marriage even though so many others had failed.

“There is so much failure of love all around us!” Benedict told the crowd, camped out on a vast, dusty field. “How many couples don’t succeed and separate? How many families end up in pieces? How many kids, even among you, have seen their parents separate and divorce?”

The weekend festival, designed to reinvigorate Italian Catholic youth, coincides with the Catholic Church’s “Save Creation Day,” and has a decidedly eco-friendly theme. Participants were given bright orange thermal packs made out of recycled nylon containing their food for the weekend and biodegradable plates.