"Here are your boys and girls, Your Holiness. Boys and girls proud to be Christians, that is, to be the disciples of Christ the Master. Here is, in front of you, the young Church, a Church full of hope and missionary spirit". At the end of the Mass, mgr. Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Papal Council for Laity, briefly spoke to the Pope, saying the young "have come from all over the world, they have set off in the footsteps of the three Wise Men to come and adore and find Christ here in Cologne, in the heart of Europe". After commemorating the figure of John Paul II, the "author" of the WYDs, Rylko concluded: "The longed-for time, the important time of missions has come. To conclude the World Youth Day of 2005, the young who are in front of you are looking forward to being sent by Your Holiness into the world to bear witness to Christ, the Redeemer of man. They are all ready to leave Cologne as the young apostles of the third millennium".
