Over 1,500 youth from all the dioceses of Germany welcomed the WYD Cross on its arrival in Berlin on Palm Sunday. During the eucharistic celebration, held in St. John’s basilica and transmitted live by Germany’s second public TV channel (ZDF), a group of Bosnian youth handed over the Cross they had brought with them from Sarajevo. “In the midst of the violence, derision, rejection or also the indifference and perfidy, there are people, today too, who choose Jesus, who do not avert their gaze or run away from the difficulties”, declared Monsignor Franz-Josef Bode, president of the youth ministry Commission of the German Bishops’ Conference. “I wish to thank those of you who are here” continued the bishop, addressing the young “because you want to take this hope to your country and bring it those who wish finally to see Jesus”. The Federal Minister for Health, Ulla Schmidt, representing the federal government, declared: “The Cross is a message. The young carry it to dedicate themselves to a world of peace and justice. With this symbol of World Youth Day, a sign for a united Europe is simultaneously given”. Schmidt emphasized that the presence of the Cross in Berlin, and in particular at the Brandenburg Gate, recalls the place where “the separation of peoples was overcome”, and paid particular tribute to the Pope, “who as no one else has dedicated himself to the reconciliation of peoples”. The Minister for the Interior of the Land Berlin-Brandenburg, Jorg Schönböhm, urged the young to devote themselves to “giving a sign”, and stressed that “faith forms part of our society”. Msgr. Erwin Joseg Ender, nuncio apostolic in Germany, declared that the passage of the WYD Cross through the Brandenburg Gate “is a symbol of this country”: “let us say ‘yes’ to faith, let us say ‘yes’ to religious symbols visible in public”, he added. Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky, archbishop of the city, spoke of a “great occasion” for Berlin: “With the cross let us visit places of memory lest we forget the suffering of the world”.
