wyd 2005" "
350,000 enrolments, over 7000 priests, 700 bishops, accommodation for 85,000 made available by German families, and even a logistics expert placed at the disposal of the WYD organization by the German Army. These were some of the figures cited by Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of Cologne, 42 days before the beginning of the 20th World Youth Day due to be held in the city on the Rhine (15-21 August). Speaking in Rome on 5 July, Meisner gave a briefing about the forthcoming WYD and reminded his audience that “Cologne has been working for this event for 8 years”. The results achieved so far are impressive: “350,000 enrolments registered so far are at this point a number that exceeds our expectations”. However, the cardinal stressed, “WYD must not remain an isolated fact, but must continue to reverberate in the world”. Meisner also announced for next year a congress on the face of the Holy Shroud and a civic mission in the largest of the cities on the Rhine. Nor did he fail to refer to the Holocaust, described by the cardinal as “a wound still open for us Germans. The Jews are for us not just a people, but brothers and sisters. We must cooperate to ensure that nothing like this shall ever happen again”. Meisner said he was “happy that a German pope is coming to visit the synagogue in Cologne”. A visit by Benedict XVI to the synagogue of the Rhineland city is in fact scheduled for 19 August. It is calculated that some 800,000 youth will participate in WYD, which will end with a mass celebrated by the pope on an artificial hill built up of earth from all continents in the Marienfeld, now equipped to accommodate up to two million people.
