(From our correspondents in Australia) Diaries on line and blogs on diocesan websites are establishing a “direct line” between the youngsters in Sydney for WYD and those who have remained at home. Videos on “You Tube” create virtual piazzas in which news and experiences are exchanged. It’s enough to do the rounds on the web to understand that WYD in Australia is being complimented by a virtual one. It is youth themselves, from the North to the South of Italy, who have got organized to enable those who did not have the means to undertake such a long journey to the antipodes to participate in the event. On the portal of the archdiocese of Milan, for instance, videos and photo galleries illustrate the experiences of pilgrims and the stories of twinned communities, edited by the head of the youth pastoral office, Father Severino Pagani, who is in Australia together with a large group of Milanese youth. The diary of the 82 youngsters from the diocese of Bologna in Melbourne can be found, on the other hand, on “You Tube”. Many initiatives are also being organized by Italian dioceses in tandem with the Saturday night vigil at Randwick. “If Australia is too far away choose another island!” is the slogan accompanying another video on “You Tube”, which invites the youth of Iglesias to experience WYD on the Sardinian island of San Pietro. In several cases, as in Turin or Cesena-Sarsina, dioceses have chosen to recount the experience of their own youth contingents in Sydney on line on diocesan weeklies, with testimonies, photos and videos sent in by the young participants themselves.
