John Paul II fully intends to go to Cologne for the 20th World Youth Day (WYD), scheduled for 11-21 August 2005 and expected to be attended by some 800,000 participants. Confirmation of this was given on the margins of the general audience on Wednesday 29 October, when the general secretary of the WYD, Msgr. Heiner Koch, and the director of the WYD Office, Hermann-Josef Johanns, officially presented the Pope with the official logo of the Day. It is in the form of an ellipse in which are portrayed Christ represented by a red Cross, a star that indicates that God is guiding us, the Cathedral of Cologne, a stylised C that again stands for Christ and the communion of the Church, and lastly a blue arc that recalls the river Rhine and the water of baptism. According to Johanns, “John Paul II was very impressed by the logo”, and Msgr. Koch added: “He accepted it with joy and gratitude”. The representatives of the WYD Office in Cologne also met in recent days with Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, to which the Pope has assigned responsibility for the meeting, to discuss the contents and some organizational aspects of the event.
