A pilgrimage along the “road of reconciliation”, bearing the Cross of World Youth Day, began on 1st July and is due to end at the end of August. The pilgrimage will take the cross, and bring the message to reconciliation, to many countries: Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The pilgrimage, explains Austrian national youth delegate Christian Wiesinger, “is intended to be a sign of hope and reconciliation for the eight countries of the central European Katholikentag (Congress of Catholics) plus Romania”; a “strong religious” sign of friendship and political cooperation “in a Europe that is growing”. The cross represents both the grief of the past and the hope for liberation, transcending every frontier. The “road of reconciliation, along which the cross is carried, is conceived as an impulse in preparation for the central European Katholikentag”, adds Wiesinger. Particular significance will be acquired by the stop at the sanctuary of Mariazell, in eastern Austria, final stage of the “pilgrimage of peoples” in May 2004. The itinerary of the WYD Cross is as follows: Pulkau, Geras, Mariazell, Leibnitz, Deutschlandsberg and Wolfsberg. On 22 July, at Bad Vellach, the cross will be handed over by the youth of Corinthia to that of Slovenia and then borne in procession to Jezersko. The inclusion of Romania in the pilgrimage is “a clear signal that, after the Katholikentag, the other neighbouring countries must also be integrated in a reunited and reconciled Europe”.
