Our People

Gathering for the Arrival of the World Youth Day Cross and Icon

Qantas Hangar, Sydney International Airport

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney
1/7/2007

Thank you, Mr Borghetti. First, I would like to acknowledge our distinguished guests here today: the Prime Minister John Howard; Tanya Plibersek representing Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd; New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma; the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Ambrose de Paoli; the Archbishop of Wellington and Metropolitan Archbishop of New Zealand, John Dew; the President of the Australian Bishops, Archbishop Philip Wilson; other civic and Church leaders, corporate partners and friends; Mr Danny Casey and the World Youth Day staff; and most important of all, those for whom the World Youth Day is principally intended: the young people of Australia and the world!

Today is a momentous one in the story of World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney. From 15-20 July next year we will be privileged to host the 23rd World Youth Day and today we enter, as it were, the final strait. By then there will be far more in the race. At least half a million will take part at any one time here in Sydney, making it the biggest gathering of youth, the biggest religious gathering, and perhaps the biggest gathering of people in one place in our nation’s history. Hundreds of millions more will join us all around the world through the media.
It will also mark the first visit to Australia of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. We remember with great pride his announcement in Cologne in 2005 that Sydney would be the next host of World Youth Day and the first to host it in the Oceania region. We look forward with great excitement to welcoming him next year. At this point I would like to invite the Pope’s representative in Australia, His Excellency the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Ambrose de Paoli, to read a message he has just received from the Holy Father.

10.02am: Archbishop de Paoli to read Papal Message
10.04am +AF

Thank you Your Excellency: it is wonderful to know that the Holy Father is with us today in his thoughts and prayers.

Today the first two pilgrims arrive for the journey to World Youth Day 2008. They are a little different to the young people who will arrive next year. They are a simple wooden cross and an ‘ancient’ painting. These two pilgrims – the Cross and Icon – were first sent on their journey by Pope John Paul II: the Cross, given to the youth of the world early in his pontificate, in 1984… and the Icon, given towards the end, in 2003. They are like bookends of his life as the pilgrim pope and the young people’s pope. They are an abiding memory for us of him.

But they are more than mementos of a great pope. They are above all reminders of God’s love for humanity: a love big enough that he would take flesh for us and be born of the Virgin Mary as we will see in the Icon. A love big enough that he would be willing to live amongst us as a young man himself and die on a simple wooden cross, in solidarity with all those who suffer and for the salvation of the world. A love big enough that he would rise again to give hope to the world and a bright promise of immortality such as is told in the now empty cross that we will shortly see.

Cross and Icon are, then, reminders not just of the young people’s pope but, much more importantly, of the young people’s Saviour, Jesus Christ. They tell, also, of the young people’s Church, their world, their generation, their future, as one great People of God. And so since 1984 these two pilgrims, Cross and Icon, have not stayed put in Rome: they have travelled the world, carried not so often in flying kangaroos as on the shoulders of ordinary young people, uniting them and pointing them to the future.

In 1985, for instance, they brought the Cross behind the Iron Curtain into communist Prague and prayed for liberation. In 1995 more than four million carried it to the celebration of the largest Mass in history, in Manilla. In 2002 they took it to Ground Zero in New York City after September 11. In 2004 they took it through the Brandenburg Gate and to a concentration camp in prayerful repentance and to pray for an end to racism and violence. In 2006 the Cross and Icon made another epic journey through Africa, bringing hope for reconciliation in places marred by civil war, genocide and poverty.

Earlier this year young people took the Cross and Icon to the Demilitarized Zone which for more than 50 years has separated the people of North and South Korea and they prayed for unity and peace. In East Timor the Cross and Icon brought calm amidst pre-election tensions. In the Solomon Islands they brought Easter hope amidst grief after the devastation of an earthquake and tsunami. All around the Pacific Islands, as elsewhere in the world, young people have brought to the Cross their hopes and fears, their aspirations and promise.

On Palm Sunday 2006, in the presence of Pope Benedict, the young people of Germany handed over the Cross and Icon to a group of young Australians in an emotional ceremony in St Peter’s Square. Our Archbishop Cardinal George Pell was there as he would have been today were he not in Rome for meetings with the Holy Father. Also present were Mr Turnbull, representing the Prime Minister, and Premier Iemma, on behalf of the people of Australia and New South Wales.

Today Australia takes up these symbols of faith, hope and love in the handover ceremony we are about to witness. It marks a new chapter in the Story of the Cross that began two millennia ago in the Holy Land and has been retold in word, sacrament and symbol ever since. Now after their journey through New Zealand, we greet the Cross and Icon as they begin their pilgrimage through Australia. We greet them and we send them on their way for twelve months in which they will visit some of our nation’s most significant spiritual, historical, cultural and geographic locations. More than 400 Australian communities have already indicated that they will take part.

Today is National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday in Australia and so it is especially fitting that Indigenous Australians should be the first to welcome the Cross and Icon to Australia. So the ceremonial element will begin with a Maori farewell, then an Aboriginal welcome, followed by the official handover ceremony and speeches from our official guests. Those of us working for World Youth Day 2008 are excited and humbled that this day has come at last. We give thanks to God and all of you who have helped to make it happen. May God bring abundant blessings to you and to our country.

Now I ask you all to focus your eyes on the tail of the Qantas plane from which the New Zealand delegation will carry the Cross and Icon onto Australian land, marking their official arrival in our nation.

+AF to sit down
10.09am: NZ group descend from plane and carry CI to front of stage
10.17am: Aboriginal music begins, sweeping of leaves. Local indigenous elder enters stage and welcomes the Cross and Icon to Australia. Elsie acknowledges dignitaries.
10.19am +AF

Thank you Elsie, and thank you to all our Aboriginal brothers and sisters who have welcomed us to this land and who are playing such a major part in our preparations for World Youth Day. We have heard the farewell of the people of New Zealand.  We have listened to the welcome of the first Australians. On behalf of the youth of Australia, represented by young people from every diocese and many of the groups and communities of our Church, we will now receive the Cross and Icon.

10.20am: Aboriginal music begins again. Handover commences
10.21am +AF

I now invite Geremy Hema to speak about his experience of the Cross and Icon while they were in New Zealand.

10.24am: Geremy gives short testimony
10.27am +AF

Thank you for sharing your experience with us Geremy. It is a moving testimony of faith and of the impact of the Cross and Icon. I am now very pleased to invite the Archbishop of Wellington and President of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops’ Conference to the stage: Archbishop John Dew.

10.24am: Address by Archbishop Dew to speak
10.26am +AF

Thank you Your Grace. New Zealand is not only the last host of the WYD Cross and Icon: they are our co-hosts of the Days in Dioceses when the youth of the world will visit various parts of our two countries in the week before WYD 2008. They are also co-sponsors with us of our programme to assist the youth from poorer parts of Oceania attend WYD next year. I would now like to call upon the President of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide.

10.27am: Address by Archbishop Wilson 
10.34am +AF

Thank you Archbishop Wilson. A small country like Australia could not hope to host the world’s biggest youth gathering unless the whole community, including government and business, were behind it. We have been blessed to have the support of both our Federal and State Governments. I now invite the Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable John Howard to speak.

10.35am: Address by Prime Minister
10.39am +AF

Thank you Prime Minister. I now ask the NSW Premier, the Honourable Morris Iemma to speak.

10.40am: Address from Premier
10.44am +AF

Thank you Premier. Again I want to put on the record our gratitude to our two governments and to our corporate partners also. One of those is of course Qantas, who brought the Cross and Icon and New Zealand delegation to us and have hosted this wonderful occasion today: again, our thanks Mr Borghetti.

This brings to a conclusion the formal part of this morning’s proceedings. Our team will bring the Cross and Icon to a public welcome at Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbour at 1.30pm. I invite you all to attend this event, where you will also hear the premiere of the World Youth Day anthem, Receive the Power, performed by Guy Sebastian and Paulini.

This event will conclude at 5pm, and be followed by a special Mass in St Mary’s Cathedral at 6pm. Again, you are all warmly welcome. I ask you today and throughout the next twelve months to keep the Cross and Icon Team in your prayers as they carry with those symbols the message of Christ’s love. We pray that it will be a time of grace for all our whole country.

Thank you and God bless you.