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One of the quotes Agence France-Press cited in its coverage of Pope
Benedict in Sydney, “where thousands of cheering and waving World
Youth Day pilgrims crammed into central Sydney on Thursday to see
Pope Benedict XVI parading through the streets in his popemobile,”
was “I’ve never seen such a group of young happy people, I think
the World Youth Day is a wonderful thing.”
This is usually what impresses people seeing a
World Youth Day (WYD) for the first time.
They said the same thing in 1995 when WYD was
held in Manila and the late Pope John Paul II the Great dialogued,
prayed and sang with four million people—Filipino youth mostly
with some 500,000 pilgrims from all over the world—who filled up
the Luneta, Rizal Park, Intramuros and the streets of Ermita up to
Taft Avenue. The Manila WYD is recorded as history’s biggest
assembly of all time.
Manila’s WYD is remembered in Sydney and every
country that holds a World Youth Day.
World Youth Day Sydney as of yesterday had drawn
more than 200,000 pilgrims to the city. About 100,000 are from
overseas. Before WYD ends on Sunday, the Australian organizers
expect 500,000.
Mother Angelica’s EWTN is showing World Youth
Day Sydney live.
Inaugurated in 1986
The idea for World Youth Day developed out of
Pope John Paul’s frequent meetings with young people, particularly
in the 1983-1984 celebration of the 1,950th anniversary of the death
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Pope named the Holy Year of the
Redemption.
The German Bishop Paul-Josef Cordes,
vice-president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, was involved
in the events for young people. The Pope had voiced a hope that
something permanent could be fixed.
More than 300,000 young people from all over the
world responded to the Pope’s invitation to come to St. Peter’s
Square Rome for an International Jubilee of Youth on Palm Sunday.
Accommodation was a major problem. The problem was solved when 6,000
Roman households offered to put up the young people.
Aside from Pope John Paul II, many bishops,
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Frère Roger (founder of the Taizé
Community) participated in the chats with the youth.
The youth prayed the rosary, attended Mass at
St. Peter’s and did the Stations of the Cross in the Coliseum.
The Pope entrusted to the youth of the world the
huge wooden crucifix that has become the “World Youth Day Cross”
that was in Manila in 1995 and is in Sydney today.
It was in his April 7, 1985 Easter “Urbi et
Orbi (To the city and the world)” message that John Paul II
announced that there would thenceforth be a regular World Youth Day.
He said: “Last Sunday I met with hundreds of
thousands of young people; the festive sight of their enthusiasm
made a deep impression in my soul. Wishing that this wonderful
experience be repeated in the coming years and that an International
Palm Sunday meeting of youth therefore be initiated, I reaffirm my
conviction: youth faces a difficult yet exciting task: changing the
underlying mechanisms that promote egotism and repression in the
relations between nations, and creating new structures oriented to
truth, solidarity and peace.”
Formally the first World Youth Day was in Rome
on Palm Sunday 1986. Then it was held in Buenos Aires in 1987. After
that World Youth Days have been held every two years at different
cities.
World’s youth mostly pray
The success of every World Youth Day celebration
confirms a German survey that shows teenagers and young adults are
interested in religion.
A Zenit report on July 11 says that the
Bertelsmann Foundation has announced that a study on “religion and
religious practices worldwide found that 85 percent of young adults
between 18 and 29 are religious, and 44 percent are deeply
religious. Only 13 percent have no appreciation for God or faith in
general.”
Zenit quoted Dr. Martin Rieger, project leader
of the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Religion Monitor, as saying,
“The assumption that religious belief is dwindling continuously
from generation to generation is clearly refuted by our worldwide
surveys—even in many industrialized nations.”
The study surveyed 21,000 individuals from 21
nations. It found that young adults in Islamic states and developing
countries are deeply religious, while young Christians in Europe are
comparatively unreligious.
Among Catholics in particular, the proportion of
deeply religious Catholics in Europe is 25 percent, while outside
Europe this figure is 68 percent.
The study sees that “a great exception among
the Western industrialized countries is the United States, where 54
percent of the young adults polled said they considered themselves
deeply religious.” In the United States, 57 percent of young
Americans say they pray daily.
rqb@manilatimes.net
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