"This square is a place of meeting and communication in which the hubbub of voices and everyday crowds often prevail. And now, your presence has turned it almost into a temple whose vault is the sky, which tonight seems to be leaning over us," the Holy Father said, adding that we wished to receive God's Word in silence, so that it could enlighten our mind and warm our heart.

The pope thanked Monsignor Marin Srakic, president of the Croatian Bishops' Conference, for introducing tonight's gathering, as well as Daniel and Mateja, two young people who shared their testimonies of faith tonight.

"Your Holiness, welcome to our Croatia. Welcome to Zagreb," said Srakic, welcoming Benedict XVI on behalf of the Catholic youth who had come from all over Croatia as well as from Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries with Croatian Catholic communities.

Srakic said the Croatian Catholic youth turned their eyes to the martyrdom the blessed Alojzije Stepinac had suffered for justice and the truth, for the defence of man's rights and religious freedoms.

The archbishop said the Holy Father had come to Croatia at a time when the world and the Croatian people were facing a serious cultural, economic and political crisis which he said was hiding a deep crisis of the spirit that spread despondency, deepened ideological and other rifts, intensified dissatisfaction and seemed hard to overcome.

"We all want a better future, a better world. Today, together with Your Holiness, we pray to the Heavenly Mother," said Srakic.

In his address to young people, Benedict XVI said everyone knew that a strong desire for happiness resided in every person's heart.

"Every action, every decision, every intention carries within itself that hidden, intimate and natural need. But we frequently notice that we have put our trust in realities that do not fulfil that wish but reveal their uncertainty. And it is in those moments that we feel the need for something that goes beyond, that gives meaning to everyday life," said the pope.

He went on to say that Jesus spoke to the youth through the Gospels and the Holy Spirit and that he was their contemporary.

"He comes looking for you before you come looking for him. Fully respecting your freedom, he approaches everyone and proposes himself as the true and decisive answer to the desire residing in your being, to the wish for a life that is worth living. Let him take your hand, let him be your friend and travel with you. Trust in him, he will never disappoint you. Jesus lets you meet the love of God up close, he lets you realise that your happiness is achieved in friendship with him, in union with him. We are made and saved in love. And only in the love that wants and seeks the wellbeing of others can we truly taste the meaning of life, and we are happy to live it, including in exertion, temptation and disappointment, even swimming against the current," said the pope.

He told young people not to be "seduced by the attractive promises of easy success, of ways of life which favour appearance at the expense of what is inside. Don't give in to temptation to completely trust possessions and material things, to renounce to follow the truth which moves on, like a star high in the sky, where Christ wants to take you. Let him take you to God's heights. In the time of your youth, you are supported by the testimony of many of the Lord's disciples who lived in their time by carrying in their hearts the news of the Gospels."

Benedict called on the youth to direct their thoughts to the blessed Ivan Merz and said our whole life is a walk towards the love that is God. "That way we can live in the certainty that we will never be abandoned."

"Dear young Croats, I hug you all as children. I carry you in my heart and leave you my blessing. Rejoice in the Lord forever. Let his joy, the joy of true love, be your strength," the pontiff said.