Open your hearts and homes ” “

Many events are being promoted during the summer as part of the preparations for the WYD in Cologne. We present a review of various activities linked to the organization of Cologne 2005, begun in German dioceses in recent weeks. Wanted: VOLUNTEERS AND ACCOMMODATION. Appeals are being made on the official website of WYD, www.wjt-de, for participation in the event and assistance in its organization. It is estimated that some 800,000 youth from all over the world will participate in World Youth Day 2005. “Volunteer now!” is the slogan with which the organizers are seeking some 20,000 volunteers from all over the world, to assist in the various logistic activities of WYD. The WYD office is also seeking 1,200 group leaders for the training of volunteers and 120 “volunteer support managers” for the guidance, support and motivation of international groups. Volunteers must be over the age of 18 by August 2005, and speak both German and English. Applications can be made on-line. Sleeping facilities for over 500,000 are also needed to be able to accommodate the young visitors in the area of Cologne; of these, some 80,000 bed-spaces will have to be found in private homes. That’s why on 1st July the archdiocese launched its action “Wanted: accommodation”. “Open your hearts and your homes!”: that’s the appeal being made to private citizens by Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of Cologne, in the course of a press conference symbolically held in a tent installed in the gardens of the archbishop’s residence. “Offer accommodation, place a part of your home at the disposal of our young guests from all over the world!”, continued Meisner. “The young will bring with them a rubber mattress and sleeping bag: they only need one thing: to find a place where they can sleep”. According to Heiner Koch, general secretary of WYD “the meeting with the youth from all over the world provides an opportunity to give a vital impulse to our own youth and our own Church. We want to give to our guests everything we are and have. We are certain we will receive much more in return from our guests, especially through their faith”. THE CROSS IN THE DISCO. Meanwhile the WYD Cross is continuing its pilgrimage through Germany; and in Fulda, in former East Germany, it stopped in a rather unusual place on 5 June: in the city’s Kreuz (German for “cross”) discotheque. On the evening of the entry of the Cross into the disco, normally dedicated to heavy metal and gothic music, instead of the few score people expected, hundreds of youth from all over Germany, who had heard of the event in the media, showed up at the venue. Later, from 20 to 30 June, the Cross travelled through the diocese of Hildesheim, accompanied by a series of events, even a trip by canoe. The other places visited by the Cross included the former concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. Another place of the memory of Nazi atrocities was chosen symbolically for the passage of the Cross: on 8 July the youth of the diocese of Würzburg handed over the Cross to the youth of the diocese of Eichstätt at Nuremberg, in the area of the diet of the Third Reich, to give a sign of reconciliation. The programme for the meeting included reading out passages from the Nuremberg laws, approved in 1935 to discriminate against Jews, and passages from the Bible in which discrimination and division are spoken of. On 16 July the Cross made its entry into the diocese of Regensburg, welcomed by the bishop Msgr. Gerhard Ludwig Müller. On 17 July the Cross was raised in the city’s Cathedral square for “Cross-light-night”, diocesan youth day, held every five years. A WYD OF solidariTY. Many activities are being performed by the various dioceses to turn the WYD into an occasion for solidarity, and particularly to fund the participation of the youth from poorer countries in the event. The first phase of “Gimme5ive” ended on 5 June; this is a solidarity project organized in the diocese of Münster to raise funds to finance the journey to Cologne for youth in Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Europe. “I was struck by the fact – says Bishop Reinhard Lettmann of Münster – that various groups joined together in various parish communities. We can learn a lot from that!”. In the parishes of Essen-Dellwig young people have been organizing various fund-raising activities to permit the participation in WYD of 50 youth from the parish of Sukovac in Bosnia: from brunch to candle light dinners, to the sale of souvenirs and first communion wine, bottled with special labels. There’s also a website that describes the various activities and seeks sponsors: www.hejo4bosnia