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Pope calls for Sunday's soul 'to be restored'

09/09/2007

The Pope has urged Catholics to reclaim the Sabbath as a day of religious reflection during a sermon in Vienna.

Pope Benedict XVI's words came on the final day of his three-day visit to Austria amid declining church attendance figures in the central European country.

Quoting a 20th century German cardinal he said: "Give the soul its Sunday, give Sunday its soul."

The Pope went on to say: "[Sunday] gives a focus, an inner order to our time and thus to the whole of our lives.

"We need this encounter which brings us together, which gives us space for freedom, which lets us see beyond the bustle of everyday life to God's creative love, from which we come and towards which we are travelling."

At St Stephen's cathedral the pontiff also delivered a warning on the transformation of Sundays into a day of pure leisure.

"Sunday has been transformed in our western societies into the weekend, into leisure time," he said.

"Leisure time is certainly something good and necessary, especially amid the mad rush of the modern world.

"Yet if leisure time lacks an inner focus, an overall sense of direction, then ultimately it becomes wasted time that neither strengthens nor builds us up. Leisure time requires a focus – the encounter with him who is our origin and goal."

Pope Benedict's visit to Austria, his seventh trip outside Italy since his 2005 election, will end when he returns to Rome tonight.