Pope Announces World Youth Day For Sydney In 2008

By Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese

21 August 2005

Pope Benedict XVI has today announced that World Youth Day (“WYD”) 2008 will be held in Sydney, and that he will be coming here to Australia to meet the young people of  the world in July 2008.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, was delighted with the Pope’s decision.

 “It is a great privilege to have World Youth Day entrusted to the Church in Australia.  World Youth Day is about bringing the face of Jesus Christ and the reality of God’s love to the youth of the world.  I hope that many young people from Australia and overseas will come and deepen their faith through the experience of  World Youth Day in Sydney.”

“Sydney is a beautiful city and Australia is a great country, and I look forward to welcoming Pope Benedict XVI and the youth of the world for World Youth Day 2008.  Everyone is welcome.”

Cardinal Pell expressed his gratitude to all of those whose work has helped make Sydney’s bid a success.

“Our bid reflected the substantial preparatory work we undertook before making a decision to propose Sydney as a host city for World Youth Day.  A number of people in both the Archdiocese and government have worked extremely hard on feasibility analysis and planning.  I am particularly grateful for the strong support of the Federal and State Governments, and the City Council. The partnership with governments was clearly a key factor in the success of the bid.”

New South Wales Minister for Tourism, Ms Sandra Nori, who is also in Cologne as a member of the Sydney Observation Team for World Youth Day, said “I have never seen or experienced anything like it—literally hundreds of thousands of young people moving about the city, participating in the events, happy, positive, joyous and absolutely well-behaved. It is uplifting to see.

“I am proud and excited that Sydney has this opportunity to host World Youth Day and His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on his first, history-making visit to Australia. This will be a special occasion not just for Sydney and New South Wales but for the whole of Australia.”

There have been 20 World Youth Days, 9 of which have been international. In its short history WYD has become the world’s largest international gathering of young people.  Sydney’s will be the 10th international celebration of WYD and the first in Oceania.

2500 young pilgrims from across Australia in Cologne with Cardinal Pell and other Australian bishops were jubilant at the Pope’s announcement, which came at  the end of the Final Mass, and immediately afterwards unveiled a banner welcoming the youth of the world to Sydney.

Cardinal Pell also congratulated the Cologne Organising Committee on hosting a truly world class event.  “The Cologne Committee can be proud of the work they have carried out and the positive impact this will have on the lives of the many hundreds of thousands of  young people who made the pilgrimage to Cologne, and the communities to which they now return.”

Cardinal Pell said the Sydney Archdiocese will now begin to implement plans to ensure the success of Sydney’s WYD in all respects. 

“While the event is a little under three years away, the task ahead is enormous, and will involve the implementation of over 2 years of work. We look forward to working closely with all levels of government  to ensure that World Youth Day in Sydney is a resounding success”.

The latest information and media releases on WYD 2005 in Cologne is available at www.wjt2005.de .

Cardinal Pell will attend the final Cologne WYD Press Conference at the Main Press Centre in Cologne (Kölnmesse, Congress Centrum West, Eingang Auenplatz, Messeplatz 1, D-50679 ) on Sunday 21 August at 9:00pm (Monday, 22 August 2005, at 5:00am Sydney time).

BACKGROUND TO WORLD YOUTH DAY

World Youth Day (WYD) is a world wide celebration for young people held every two or three years.  It is an event for people 16-35 years of age, held over six days. Everyone is welcome.

WYD commences on a Monday with arrival and registration of pilgrims. 

On the Tuesday, the key event is an opening Mass of welcome celebrated by the local bishop and a welcome concert.

On Wednesday to Friday, pilgrims attend catechesis (teaching sessions led by bishops) in the morning and exhibitions and festivals in the afternoon and evening.

The arrival of the Holy Father on the Thursday is a flagship event of WYD. 

Stations of the Cross take place on Friday evening with a pilgrimage walk on Saturday to an evening vigil Mass and “sleep-out” on Saturday night.

The final Mass is held with the Holy Father on Sunday morning and pilgrims commence their departure from mid-Sunday onwards.

WYD has become the largest international mobilisation of young people the world has ever seen. In recent times WYDs have been attended by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims. 

The effects of WYD are difficult to measure but the testimonies of thousands of young people speak of a profound faith experience with practical life implications.  Parish communities and host cities report a renewed involvement of youth in the church and signs of a young and energetic Catholicism emerging as a key legacy of the event.

How did WYD begin?

WYD was initiated by Pope John Paul II. In 1984 the Pope invited the youth of the world to gather in Rome for a special celebration of an International Jubilee of Youth on Palm Sunday and 300,000 young Catholics came.

The following year marked the United Nations International Year of Youth and the Pope used the occasion to extend a second invitation to the young people. Again, hundreds of thousands of young people flooded the streets of Rome on Palm Sunday. The success of these events inspired the Pope to create a much larger and more powerful event to be organized by the Catholic Church, known as World Youth Day.

As a general rule, WYDs have been held every two years at a different location somewhere in the world. In the intervening years WYD is also marked by celebrations on Palm Sundays in Rome and in dioceses across the world.

Since Rome, celebrations have taken place in following host cities: Buenos Aires, Santiago de Compostela, Czestochowa, Denver, Manila, Paris, back to Rome in 2000 and Toronto in 2002. The latest international WYD has just concluded in Cologne, Germany.

The latest information and media releases on WYD 2005 in Cologne is available at www.wjt2005.de .