World Youth Day Succeeds as Pilgrimage Experience

By Linda Busetti
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 8/15/02)

Cardinals and bishops leaving a recent World Youth Day VIP dinner in Toronto were surrounded by a sea of youths who wanted to talk with them and get their autographs. It was a unique opportunity for young people and the hierarchy of the Church to connect.

This is one of the vivid memories Kevin Bohli, diocesan director of the Office of Youth Ministry, took away from World Youth Day, held July 22-28.

He also recalls Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde spending time with diocesan pilgrims eating dinner under a tree, celebrating Mass and holding a question and answer session in which the bishop shared the story of his own call to the priesthood.

Bohli had forewarned the approximately 185 youths and youth ministers that World Youth Day was not a vacation, but a pilgrimage.

"I knew it would take a lot of work to make it more than a trip, to make it an actual pilgrimage," Bohli said. "It takes effort to get beyond the festival scene … to the spiritual reason we were there."

Pilgrims experienced sacrifice and struggle — scorching sun, sleeping outdoors, getting soaked in a thunder storm and sharing cramped living space with about 800,000 other pilgrims. "It was actually testing the whole idea of why we were there — the idea of social justice and sharing with the world," Bohli said. It took some effort for pilgrims to keep this in mind. "Through sacrifice, through surviving the night and the storm, we grew," Bohli said.

After Pope John Paul II celebrated an outdoor Mass with pilgrims on Sunday, diocesan youths started talking about World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany.

Over the week of World Youth Day events, Bohli said, diocesan youths gained "a much better appreciation for the definition of the word Catholic, that it does mean universal. … Suddenly, to be in a sea of Catholics, with an acre of priests and a procession of bishops lasting five minutes, it gave them a greater appreciation that the Catholic Church is so much larger than they realized."

Although secular news media covering World Youth Day focused on the "crisis in the Church," Bohli said he didn’t think the recent Church scandals were uppermost in the minds of diocesan youths attending the week’s events.

Bohli was excited to see an exhibition hall of vocations booths packed with youths getting information on the priesthood and religious orders. Bishop Loverde staffed one of the vocations booths, Bohli said.

"We need to give kids as many opportunities as possible to see that it’s cool to be a priest or to have a religious vocation," Bohli said. "It was great to see them walking around and asking questions of all these religious orders" including Jesuits and Franciscans.

"[World Youth Day] was a great experience," Bohli said, although it tested some pilgrims. In the midst of the worst weather, one woman mouthed the words, "Never again," to Bohli, but the next morning, after the pope’s arrival for Mass, she told him, "Forget what I said."

That woman, Cathy Flowers of St. Michael Parish in Annandale, had taken her family, including three sons, and two other parish youths, to World Youth Day. She initially got so involved videotaping events that she became overwhelmed. She promised herself on Sunday to concentrate on participating in Pope John Paul II’s celebration of Mass. Flowers listened intently to the pope’s words. "When he said, ‘Rain brings peace as in baptism,’ I had goose bumps. It was awesome," she said. When Flowers had the opportunity to renew her baptismal vows, she began to cry and couldn’t stop. That’s when she told Bohli to disregard her earlier frustration. In the end, Flowers said, the experience of seeing the pope "meant everything to me."

Christine Najarian, youth minister at Holy Spirit Parish in Annandale, brought six youths to Toronto. "The experience was wonderful, well worth it," Najarian said. "I was struck most by having the bishop with us."

She said that it won’t be as hard for youth ministers to bring the week’s experience back to the diocese because Bishop Loverde was such a large part of World Youth Day.

The bishop reminded youths they are not the Church of the future, but they are the Church now, Najarian said,

"It was a great added treasure" to have six diocesan priests along on the trip as well as several seminarians, Najarian said. Youths joined the priests for night prayer and had the opportunity to talk to them about vocations. Najarian is sure that in time the Church will see the benefits in increased vocations.

Since returning from World Youth Day, where he sat on stage with Pope John Paul II, Georgetown University student Brian Park says the excitement has settled down, but the experience has changed his outlook on life. "I feel renewed," he said.

Because the exciting news was announced from the pulpit at St. Paul Chung Church in Fairfax, the entire parish now knows about Park’s experience. As a result, Park has been asked to write an account for the group Reborn Young Christ’s newsletter. 

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