National Day of Dutch Youth is to be repeated in Holland this year, given the success of the first two National Days in 2005 and 2006. This year’s event will be held in the Brabantenhall at ‘s-Hertogenbosch and have the title “Paradise”. According to a communiqué of the secretariat of the Catholic Church in Holland, the theme can be summed up as “heaven on earth”. After the success of the first two such Days in 2005 and 2006, Catholic Youth Day (KJD) can rightly be considered the most important event of the whole year for the “young” Catholic Church. In an interview released on the website katholieknederland.nl at the end of last year, Cardinal Adrianus Johannes Simonis, archbishop of Utrecht, had spoken of the KJD that year as “one of the things that had made him most happy”. The KJD for 2007 also offers a very varied programme, comprising various sessions and workshops. The bishops’ intention is that the KJD should offer Catholic youth “an occasion to construct a piece of heaven on earth in their daily life and in society”. It goes without saying that a prominent place in the programme will be dedicated to WYD in 2008, which will be held in Sydney. After the previous two Youth Days held in the Heidenhal at Niewegein, this year another venue has been chosen: the Brabantenhall at ‘s-Hertogenbosch, since it is thought that the transfer of the event to this symbolic place may confer on the Day a more professional character and draw a larger public (over 2,000 youth at the last KJD). Apart from the programme for youth aged between 16 and 30, the KJD will also include a programme for younger children, those in the 12-15 age group. For further info: www.jongkatholiek.nl/kjd.
