[from my parish bulletin]
This weekend brings to a close the World Youth Day held in Madrid Spain where at least one million Catholic youth joined Pope Benedict XVI for a week of prayer, catechesis and mostly to celebrate their common Catholic identity.
In 1984 Pope John Paul II declared a year for youth throughout the world. As a result, the first World Youth Day was organized as a diocesan celebration in Rome. After the youth’s positive response, a World Youth Day was organized in Buenos Aires Argentina in 1987 where over one million youth attended. Soon followed Spain (1989), Poland (1991), USA (1993) and the Philippines (1995) where over give million gathered to learn and pray with the Holy Father. Manila gathered the largest crowd ever assembled around a Pope in the 2000 year history of the Papacy.
A World Youth Day has been celebrated every two or three years. The previous one was in Australia (2008) and the next one will be in Brazil (2013). World Youth Day is a moment for youth from all over the world to gather and realize they are not alone. It is a moment to be strengthened in the faith and to be encouraged to remain faithful to Christ with hope for the future.
This year’s World Youth Day saw the distribution of a new international youth catechism called Youcat. The universal Church hopes this catechism will be a useful instrument to catechize youth in an efficient and effective manner so they may be better prepared to share their faith.
Today we unite our prayers to those of Pope Benedict and the many who are gathered for Mass with him in Madrid.
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