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Today is the actual World Youth Day (WYD 2008) in
Sydney. Vicariously, since Tuesday, Filipinos and more than a
billion and a half other TV viewers (It’s live on Mother
Angelica’s EWTN.), radio listeners and newspaper readers in the
rest of the world, have been with the Sydneysiders, the pilgrims and
Pope Benedict XVI in spirit. We have been enjoying the fellowship,
good feeling and aura of Godliness in Sydney. This atmosphere has
also characterized every weeklong WYD pilgrimage and festival since
the first one that Pope John Paul II the Great inaugurated in 1986.
World Youth Day is a series of
events. It is the largest single mobilization of young people and
the occasion for some of the largest assemblies of human beings in
history. The WYD in Manila in 1995 set a record for being
mankind’s biggest assembly. More than 3.5 million Filipinos,
joined by 500,000 pilgrims from abroad, crowded the Luneta, Rizal
Park, Port Area, Intramuros, Ermita, all of Roxas Boulevard until
Malate. They prayed and sang hymns with, serenaded, and listened to
the inspiring homilies and laughed at the heart-warming jokes of the
Vicar of Christ at the time, John Paul II.
It is the Pope himself who
invites the youth of the world to celebrate and to demonstrate their
faith at World Youth Day. Like a father exercising his duty as his
children’s teacher, he chooses the theme for each WYD pilgrim to
reflect on. He gave Sydney’s WYD08 this theme: “You will receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my
witnesses.” This passage of the Gospel is from the first chapter
of the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus has died and is resurrected. He
tells his disciples to be his witnesses—the people who are to tell
others about his life, death and resurrection and to show the good
fruits of living as he taught men and women should live.
Today, with the final WYD Mass
celebrated by Pope Benedict at Randwick Racecourse and Centennial
Park, the pilgrimage and festival ends.
Up to half a million are
expected to attend this Mass, most of them Sydneysiders and
Australians from other parts of the country. Some 150,000 WYD
pilgrims from abroad have arrived in Sydney, 12,000 of them
Filipinos.
Pope Benedict, as John Paul II
always did before saying farewell to the young pilgrims from all
over the world, will announce where World Youth Day 2010 will be
held. Then the pilgrims will chant that lucky city’s name—with
trills of happiness and hope.
‘A wonderful thing’
ASydneysider—on seeing
“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 quoted by Agence
France-Presse as saying, “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 WYD for the first time. They said the same thing
about WYD in Manila.
Agence France-Presse reported
that “Pope fever” converted usually wicked Sydney into a
“religious town.”
Agence France-Presse writer
Madeleine Coorey wrote that “known as the gay capital of the Asia
Pacific, the ‘Emerald City’ of wealth and greed within Australia
and to locals as a work-hard, play-hard metropolis—thanks to the
arrival of Pope Benedict XVI and hundreds of thousands of Catholic
pilgrims—Sydney this week has had a conversion. It has become a
city of Christian piety and fellowship.”
“Nuns, priests and monks in
garb not worn in Australia for decades are roaming the streets,
young people are wearing T-shirts and badges reading ‘Jesus loves
me’ and the streets are ringing with impromptu sing-a-longs.
“Public transport is filled by
the 215,000 foreign and Australian pilgrims, many draped in their
national flags, while the city’s biggest central park is home to
temporary confessional booths for those who need forgiveness from a
priest and be able to go to Holy Communion.
“Giant digital ‘prayer
wall’ screens have been placed at busy city meeting points while,
each day, Pope Benedict sends the visitors a text message to
encourage them during their July 15 to 20 pilgrimage.
A pilgrim from California,
16-year-old Nicole Saati, said, “Everybody is so . . . I don’t
know how to say it . . . we just feel so loved. Everybody loves each
other.”
As in previous WYD in other
cities, “an ocean of happy, singing excited people” flooded into
Sydney and the city’s main boulevard George Street was just that
for much of Thursday.
The success of every World Youth
Day confirms a worldwide survey done by the German Bertelsmann
Foundation’s researchers. They found it is not true that young
people don’t care for religion.
Zenit last week reported that
Bertelsmann Foundation’s 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.”
The Bertelsmann Foundation’s
Religion Monitor survey findings refute the conventional wisdom that
religious belief has been dwindling continuously.
Most youth in Arab countries and
Asia are deeply religious and about 25 percent of young Europeans
also are. Outside Europe, 68 percent of young Catholics consider
themselves deeply religious.
In the United States 57 percent
of young Americans say they pray daily.
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