WYD team invites Canadian pilgrims

BY GILLIAN GIRODAT
The Catholic Register
Toronto

Ever since World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, German young people have been inviting the world to come to Cologne for their celebrations this summ- er. And Fr. Ulrich Hennes, secretary for Germany’s WYD was in Toronto to say it again, as the team of young volunteers makes its final preparations for August’s week-long festivities.
“ There is still lots to do up to the last minute, but bigger than that excitement is the joy to welcome young people from around the world and the Holy Fat- her,” Hennes said.
Hennes and two young volunteers ? Christine Gold from Stuttgart, German y, and Oliver Bouchery of Saint-Gremain-Enlaye, France? were at Toronto press conference at Salt + Light Television before heading to Alabama for interviews on the American Catholic network, EWTN.
With less than eight weeks to go before the festivities, Hennes says they have 345,000 young people registered, and that number keeps increasing every day. Ten per cent of those registrants are from North America. Hennes adds that there is a record number of Europeans coming to this year’s World Youth Day.
“ Germany needs World Youth Day. Europe needs world Youth Day,” Hennes said. “we are brining back to a very central way of the church and the Sacraments.”
And if the reception of the WYD cross is any indication of how Germany this summer’s festivities, then Hennes expected to see a difference in the face of the German church.
“ we welcome the cross and amazed by the number of yong people to touch and pray before the cross,” he said. Hennes added that when the cross arrived in Cologne to travel around the diocese, it was welcomed by 300 young people, who then began a 30-km pilgrimage to the city’s pastoral center. By the time the group took its last steep, it had grown to 500 people.
“ At every parish we went by, there were bells ringing and people there to greet us and welcome the cross.”
The presence the German pontiff is also cause for the excitement at the WYD office, Hennes said. There are plans for Pope Benedict XVI to address the crowds of young people from a ship on the Rhine River, flanked by five other ships carrying youth from the five continents, before leaving the ship to enter the Cologne Cathedral, where he will pray for the Blessed Sacrament.
This, Hennes explained, mimics what young people will be doing during the week, as pilgrims participate in “Catechesis on the Move.” Much like the previous WYDs, participants will attend three catechesis sessions, however, will allow young people to make the pilgrimage along the Rhine to the Cath- edral and the shrine of the Kings.
“ We want to bring young people on the pilgrimage as it happened ion medi-val time,” Hennes said.
The WYD group also explained the presence of Sprit Centers located throughout Cologne, Düsseldorf and Bonn. Twenty churches will be open 24 hours a day for entire week, offering young people an opportunity for silent prayer, Eucharistic adoration and prayer of the hours.
“ This is un invitation to young to find a calm and quite place to worship Jesus, to have quite within the crowded experience of WYD.”