World Youth Day 2008

All roads now lead to Sydney

Archbishop Paul Cremona is currently on a visit to Maltese emigrants in Australia between July 5 and 30 in a visit coinciding with World Youth Day. This is the first time a Maltese bishop will be accompanying Maltese pilgrims on World Youth Day activities.

In 2005, some 600 young Maltese people took part in the World Youth Day activities in Cologne, but due to financial reasons only 45 will be attending. The delegation will be taking with them the relic of St Paul's arm, from St Paul Shipwrecked church in Valletta, to mark the Pauline Year.

The young people are representatives of parishes, groups and associations, and the aim of the delegation is to strengthen each other's faith and evangelise with the people they meet.

The activities, which include festivals, concerts, pilgrimage walks and Masses, are being organised by the Vatican in Sydney and will culminate with the visit by Pope Benedict XVI on July 15-20.

The tradition of World Youth Day started in 1986, when Pope John Paul II invited young people from around the world to meet every two to three years in a different location to celebrate their faith through a few days of spiritual activities and fun. This year, the event will be held in Sydney, Australia, with the culmination being mass celebrated by Pope Benedict in front of an expected 500,000 people.

The Maltese pilgrims will all be staying with Maltese families who live in Australia. In addition to attending the WYD festivities, the Maltese pilgrims will be going around Australia for a total of three weeks with the Archbishop and four other members of the clergy, visiting various Maltese communities around the country. The group started off their experience in Melbourne. The visit in Melbourne ended with a Mass for the Maltese community at St Patrick Cathedral. The Mass was organised by priests of the Missionary Society of St Paul who have been working closely and helping Maltese emigrants for about 60 years. During Mass, Mgr Cremona said that baptism made people members of God's family but people truly lived the faith by following the Word of God. He urged those present to pray for the world's youth.

On Saturday 12^th July, the group went to the Sandhurst diocese in Bendigo where Mgr Cremona and Bishop Joe Grech (Australia’s first Maltese-born bishop) concelebrated Mass at in Bendigo, Australia. The group headed to Adelaide before going to Sydney for WYD. After, they will go to Brisbon and finally Mackay, where there is a sugar cane plant for which people of Maltese descent are responsible.

The WYD theme is “You will receive the power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses”. Father Savio Vella, SDB, who is the Archbishop’s delegate for young people believes that the theme is inviting young people to go out and be witnesses to the Gospel. He expects that the Maltese contingent to bring back from Australia the enrichment from meeting various other groups from around the world, and try to encourage other young people to embark on a journey for the next World Youth Day.

Click here to listen to radio audio highlights:

http://www.radio.sbs.com.au/language.php?news=communityyouth&language=maltese

Pope Benedict arrived in Australia on Sunday 13^th yesterday after more than 20 hours of flying from Rome to start the 10-day trip, the longest of his pontificate so far and the first to the Pacific. In a message to young Australians at the start of his trip, the Pope urged them to look to God for the answers to their deep questions about the meaning of their lives. His official visit will start on Thursday July 17 when he will make his entry on a 13-vessel "boat-a-cade" in Sydney harbour (6.25 am Malta time live on SAT2000)