Addressing an estimated one million people, Pope Benedict XVI yesterday wound up the World Youth Day festival in Cologne with a call for young Catholics to make Jesus Christ the "true star" of their lives, warning against the dangers of "do-it-yourself" religions.
On a grey, overcast but dry morning, Pope Benedict delivered his key-note address to an enthusiastic congregation, gathered at the Marienfeld, a former open-pit mine, 20 kilometres outside Cologne.
Given that the majority of the Pope's young audience had spent the night at the site, having attended a Saturday night vigil, the Marienfeld yesterday looked like the largest multi-coloured, multi-racial campsite in the world.
Speaking by turns in German, English, French, Italian and Spanish, the Pope argued against treating religion as a mere consumer product, saying: "In vast areas of the world today, there is a forgetfulness of God, a sense of dissatisfaction and frustration with everyone and everything.
"Together with the forgetfulness of God, there is a kind of explosion of religion. Yet, if it is pushed too far, religion becomes almost a consumer product.
"People choose what they like and some are even able to make a profit from it. But religion constructed on a 'do-it-yourself' basis cannot ultimately help us.
"It may be comfortable but at times of crisis, we are left to ourselves. Help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ."
The theme of the inaptly-named World Youth Day festival (it actually lasts almost a week) has been, "We Have Come To Worship Him", in reference to the Three Wise Men whose alleged relics are housed in Cologne's magnificent Gothic cathedral.
Throughout the two-hour service, the Pope's homily was repeatedly greeted with rhythmic, football-crowd style chants of "Ben-e-detto" (Benedict in Italian).
The young faithful - some standing, some sitting and some even stretched out on their sleeping bags - waved flags and applauded as the Pope wound up the service with greetings in nine different languages, including Tagalog and Swahili. In those final remarks, too, the Pope said that the next World Youth Day would take place in Sydney, Australia in 2008.
Pope Benedict, elected in April as the first German pope in almost a thousand years, concluded his first foreign trip with a reference to the recent traumatic history of his homeland.
Speaking at Cologne airport prior to his return to Rome last night, he said: "We are all well aware of the evil that emerged from our homeland during the 20th century and we acknowledge it with shame and suffering. During these days here, thanks be to God, it has become quite evident that there was and is another Germany, a land of singular human, cultural and spiritual resources."