These comments by the Pope seem to be intended as a friendly gesture towards agnostics, and so that’s how they should be taken. Nevertheless, he presumes a little too much:
In addition to the two phenomena of religion and anti-religion, a further basic orientation is found in the growing world of agnosticism: people to whom the gift of faith has not been given, but who are nevertheless on the lookout for truth, searching for God. Such people do not simply assert: “There is no God”. They suffer from his absence and yet are inwardly making their way towards him, inasmuch as they seek truth and goodness. They are “pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace”.
Well, some may be, but, speaking solely for myself, I don’t spend much time thinking about such matters. These questions are unanswerable, so why worry?
What to have for lunch, on the other hand…
I take the Pope to be saying that if you look at the group of people who answer the question, “How many gods exist?” with “I don’t know,” you will probably find a higher percentage of people who are one sales pitch away from becoming Christians than you will find if you look at the group who answer the same question with “Zero.” If I had to make a guess, I’d guess that the Pope has it backwards. I’d guess that atheists include in their ranks more people who have to make an effort to convince themselves to not be religious, while agnostics are more likely to lack any particular appetite for a religious commitment.