This is another photo of Pilgrims

Thanks for fixing the photoes. I am still not sure how to do it correctly the first time.

Today 700 buses will take 15000 pilgrims from Melbourne to Sydney. There were 92 countries represented in Melbourne.

In Sydney we expect 215,000 pilgrims from 177 countries. This is far short of 1.2 Million in Cologne on the last World Youth Day. Or the seven million claim for the World Youth Day in 1995 in Manila.Australia has 5.1 Million Catholics but only 14% of these regularly attend Mass. Allmost half of Christians under 30 are said to pray on a more or less regular basis. However religion in Australia is mainly practice in private. There is little exposure in the media.

However there is expected to be a billion people watching on television particarly in highly Catholic countries.It is the hope that the public witness of the overseas pilgrims will inspire Australian Catholic to bring their religion out of the closet.

Today is the First offical day of the celebrations in Sydney.Of course people have been celebration since they arrive. The most interesting thing to me is that it is the youth who are deciding what happens not the old foggies that run the church.

Last night the arrival of the Cross and icom from a ferry in Sydney harbour was greeted with cheers worthy of football supporters. What were they cheering. Well they borrow slogans from sporting chants but changes the words. Australian have been saying in Olympic Games etc"Aussie, Aussie oui oui"the pilgrims changed the chant to "Jesus, Jesus oui oui".

Sometimes i think I am talking to myself in this post. Today the Pope sails across Sydnet Harbour and into the city . 500,000 people are expected the largest crowd assembled in Australuia.

However you can see this on TV. The important thing to me is the behaviour of the young pilgrims. They have enjoyed themselves with music, dancing and noise. Yet this is for a religious event. As I have asked in Interfaith why have so many young people shown a deeper faith than we older conventional Catholics?

Just because you don't get a response to any particular posting doesn't mean nobody is reading.


Psalm 98:
4. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.
5. Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.


That's a good question. Here's a question in reply: Is all this singing and dancing and rousing celebration indicative of deep faith, OR is it simply the exuberance of youth. I'm told Marti Gras celebrations around the world can get rather raucous, too. However, whether or not such joyous celebration is due to deep religious faith might be open to question.

Ray I agree with your quote. Joy, Music and even noise is essential for Christians. I could not but notice that during the World Day Masses, while there was silence at the must sacred moments there was clapping and cheering at other times.

You question is hard to answer at the moment. If in the future these young people commit themselves to their religion by becoming religious or even goint to church than there is an indication of Faith.

All I can say at the moment is that the young people I seem and heard do testify that they are here because of their faith. They are proud to be Catholic amongst so many fellow believers from so many countries.
They have had rock concerts but their have been no arrest for bad behaviour which is useful for such events.At the moment I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

Only time will tell.

World Youth Day is coming to an end. There were about four hundred thousand at the Papal Mass. Two hundred thousand had camped out over night. Why were they there? I do not know. Perhaps they were very religious and enjoy the old fashion Mass said partly in Greek and latin. If so I expect them in church next week.

However I doubt that we will have a flood of young people at church. Some were there for the spectical, to see the pope, to attend rock concerts, and to walk and camp with other young people. Can our parish churches cater for them? Can they can accept a conservative Mass, a congregation of mostly older people, little contempary music ? Perhaps we older people have to change as well.

Hi Auss,

The Guam group is already back from Australia and they were sharing their experiences last night. Unfortunately, there is only one member of the Guam group who is not back yet, and we are still waiting for him. My priest is stuck in the Philippines. There was no problems for him going through the Philippines to get to Australia, but there was a problem for him coming back to Guam. He's waiting for some paperworks to reach him so he can come back to Guam. Father is actually from Ecuador, but he carries a Japanese VISA. We're all praying for him.

Thanks Selene, I will be interested in what your group thought of the World Youth Day and the religious position in Australia.
I aqm sorry about your priest being stuck in the Philippines. Having visit there many times I know about the problems of Philippines customs.