Eagerly awaited meeting

World Youth Day is, by tradition, celebrated in dioceses on Palm Sunday, this year on 17 April. Its international celebration, on the other hand, is this year taking place in Madrid from 16 to 21 August. All the Italian dioceses are preparing for this Spanish event, and next Sunday will also be an occasion to promote the participation of the young. It’s estimated that over 100,000 Italian youth will arrive in the Spanish capital to celebrate WYD with Benedict XVI. The overall estimate for participation is over one million. With Fr. Eric Jacquinet, head of the youth section at the Pontifical Council for the Laity, we have tried to recall the fundamental values of an event so unique in the life of the Church as WYD, which was established by John Paul II on 15 April 1984.If you had to explain to a youngster what WYD is and invite him/her to take part in it, what would you say?“I would use the words of John Paul II: WYD is the meeting of the Church in the person of Christ. This rally is aimed at enabling young people to meet Christ and, to this end, the Church is gathered in a young assembly to share the experience of the Holy Spirit and of the Risen Lord. The rally is held wherever youth live”.What place have the new generations in the Church?“The place occupied by youth in the Church today is a central one. We know very well, as John Paul II repeatedly pointed out, that the young are the present and future of the Church, and it’s therefore regrettable whenever we have difficulty in finding a worthy place for them in our parishes. Their dynamism, their generosity, the longing for truth that they have, must be given central importance in the Church. That’s why we are trying to promote as best we can their formation and catechetical preparation for confirmation and for marriage, which represent, together with the other sacraments, a central point in our religious life”.Perhaps previously that wasn’t so…“With John Paul II and Benedict XVI the Church has changed her approach to the world of youth. Their regard has been open and full of hope in the young, and especially full of trust. And this is one of the reasons why Benedict XVI has chosen to continue with rallies like WYD, introduced by his predecessor”.This year’s WYD falls in a period of strong grass-roots political activism among the young, as for example in Egypt and in other countries of the region. Isn’t there a risk of WYD taking on board meanings different from those for which it was founded?“There will be, as always in WYD, a focal moment, namely the Via Crucis, to underline that the centre of the event is Christ and his Passion: Christ who offers his life for the salvation of everyone. In the Via Crucis of Madrid the protagonists will be the various groups coming from all over the world, both from the regions that are suffering from crisis and conflict and those that are emerging from great difficulties. In this way they will testify that Christ is close to the young and needs them. At the present time there are so many young people who are suffering and who are pleading for a place in society; I think of Egypt and the demonstrations in the Middle East. The Church takes a close interest in the young, in their sufferings which are linked to the future, to work and to the family, and also in those on whom secularism and relativism have left their mark, as we see in Europe”.With Madrid WYD is returning to Europe, after Cologne in 2005: is that also to respond to the relativism so often denounced by Benedict XVI?“The best response to secularism and relativism in the Western world is epitomized in the theme chosen for this year’s WYD, ‘Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith’. WYD would also like to be an appeal to Europe and to European youth not to succumb to the temptation to create a world without God, or relegate it to a private sphere. A world without God is a false paradise. We need to place God once again at the centre of life”.In this regard what teaching is proposed by WYD?“The Eucharist and eucharistic adoration remain the fundamental crux on which each WYD is concentrated. It’s the young themselves who have insisted on this; it’s not something that has been imposed on them, on his own, by the Pope, but a reality experienced by the young themselves. In this sense, I would like to add, the Eucharistic Congress at Ancona immediately after WYD will offer Italian youth other opportunities to reflect on the essential features of our faith”.This Spanish WYD will be the first to celebrate the beatification of John Paul II. Is it possible to forecast some specific event in the packed programme?“John Paul II will be one of the patrons of WYD in Madrid and there will be numerous references to his life and work in the shows, in the reflections and in the exhibitions. World Youth Days were brilliant intuitions of this Pope, who knew the young so well”.