(From our correspondents in Sidney) – "I have been amazed at how normal the Pope is, how affable he is". These are the words of Fidel Mateos Rodriguez, one of the twelve lucky boys and girls who could lunch with the Pope in Sydney today, a meal of sweet potato soup, chicken with peas and lemon cake. "As he saw me, the Pontiff smiled to me and said ‘Spain, Spain’, and I answered that my country is waiting for him with open arms when he wants to come". The boy gave the Pope a rosary, the book of the project of the youth pastoral in Spain and a picture of Santiago di Compostela, "because he adds the road of Santiago is the symbol of the Christian Europe". The old continent was also represented, at lunch with the Pope, by the French Marie-Bénédicte Esnault. "The Pontiff she tells told us that in future he doesn’t think he’s going to change the formula of the World Youth Days, he’ll give them continuity, even if there is a normal evolution over the years". "During lunch adds Marie we did not speak of France or Europe, but as I listened to what the other boys and girls were saying I thought that we, who live in countries of ancient Christian tradition, are very lucky and we must pray for those countries that have so many problems". (continued)
