By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A press conference was held yesterday in the Holy See Press Office to present the next World Youth Day (WYD), which is due to be held in the Spanish capital city of Madrid in August 2011.
Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, started off the conference by highlighting how the Pope lays much emphasis on the fact that WYD should not be reduced merely to a moment of festivity.
“Preparation for this great event and the attention that must be given to ordinary pastoral care are an integral and decisive part thereof. The festivities and the event itself act as a kind of catalyst to facilitate an ongoing educational process. In this sense, Benedict XVI sees in WYD a prophetic response to the educational emergency of the post-modern world.”
WYD 2011 is a clear invitation for all to draw nearer to Christ and His Church, said Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, archbishop of Madrid. “If we manage to reveal the beauty of the faith, many young and not-so-young people will proudly discover or rediscover the unearned privilege of being Catholic, and the responsibility we have to transform this world of ours into a better place for everyone.”
He described how the city is opening its doors to the expected surge of pilgrims with many families of Madrid welcoming young people into their homes. Nearly 20,000 volunteers will be on hand to help with the event that is being sponsored by donations from citizens, firms and institutions who have agreed to share the monetary responsible “for the benefit of the youth of the world,” he said.
Bishop Josef Clemens, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, said the Pope’s message for the event would include three personal experiences of the Holy Father.
“The Holy Father’s first autobiographical reference begins with the experience of his own youth as a period of ‘great seeking’, but also of ‘seeking what is great’,” said Bishop Clemens. Benedict XVI speaks of the Nazi period, but his experiences are in some way “transferrable to the situation of young people today who, though in a different way, also experience being ‘closed’ in a world where consumerism and personal relations based on interest often prevail.”
The second reference is to youth as a time of great decisions, and the Holy Father recalls his own decision to become a priest.
“The Pope’s words,” the bishop said, “reflect the experience of many young people who well know that great decisions, often difficult decisions, must subsequently be re-conquered and defended. We all know the widespread difficulty of our time of taking and remaining faithful to great decisions, of committing oneself for a lifetime. It is in this context that the Pope points out the virtues … of faithfulness and coherence, of willingness and service, as indispensable premises for an ‘authentic’ life.”
Third, the Pope’s message identifies the response that will guide us throughout our lives.
“A response that comes from the depths of his heart and from the experience of his long life,” said Bishop Clemens. “This response is God, it is faith in Him, it is the meeting with Jesus Christ; … the real Jesus, not the Jesus of a hypothesis or a scientific theory. As an ‘existential foundation’ he offers the experience of his own ‘personal search for the face of the Lord’, which he achieved and developed over long years of study, prayer and meditation.”
Bishop Cesar Franco Martinez, auxiliary of Madrid and co-ordinator general for WYD 2011, said next year’s event promises to be one of the best-attended of any held thus far in Europe, and it’s focus is to relaunch pastoral activity among young people.
“Society is witnessing a fall in religious practice among youth”, the bishop explained. “The latest official information shows that among under-twenty-fives the level of religious practice is less than ten percent, while 48.1 percent of young people declare themselves as non-practicing. It is precisely them we wish to reach.”
To learn more about WYD 2011, visit www.muchasgracias.info.
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