Italy needs new wave of Catholic politicians - Pope

By Philip Pullella

CAGLIARI, Sardinia (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Sunday Italy needed "a new generation" of Catholic politicians committed to using their religious beliefs to shepherd the country's future.

The pope, visiting the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, also urged young people to shun a consumerist society where money and success had become the new idols to which so many people pay homage.

Addressing some 150,000 people at a shrine to the Virgin Mary in the city's port area, the pope made it clear that he wanted a return to Catholic values in the political arena.

Italian politics, he said, needed "a new generation of committed lay Christians, capable of seeking solutions of sustainable development with competence and moral rigour".

Italy's Catholic vote has been suffering a diaspora since the mid-1990s, when the powerful and now defunct Christian Democratic party disappeared in a wave of corruption scandals.

A number of small parties based on Catholic values have inherited the torn mantle of the Christian Democrats but attempts to unify them into a single force have failed.

But most politicians once close to the Christian Democrats have joined an array of centrist and rightist parties.

Benedict made his comments shortly before he met Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a centre-right leader who promised in the electoral campaign that led to his election in the spring to keep Catholic values in policy.