“The archdiocese of Cologne is a suitable place to host the 20th World Youth Day in 2005″, concluded Msgr. Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, at the end of a reconnaissance mission conducted in Cologne in recent days. “We hope that WYD in Germany will offer responses to the faith of as many young people as possible”, continued Rylko, who emphasised how important is it for the WYD to be an “experience of the young Church” and the need to transmit a message of unity to the young. Msgr. Rylko, during his visit, presented the patron saints chosen for WYD in Cologne: apart from the three Magi, they are Saints Ursula, Edith Stein and Albert the Great, and the Blessed Adolf Kolping. Referring to the invitation made by John Paul II at the end of WYD in Toronto, Rylko hoped for the participation “of our Evangelic and Orthodox brothers and sisters” and “all those who are seeking a deeper meaning to life”. Msgr. Josef Clemens, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, underlined the social character of the projects being promoted in Germany as fringe events of WYD, which, he recalled, “is based on the Christian image of man”, and the commitment of the Catholic Church to the conservation of the Creation.
