Banners go up, pilgrims arrive in Rome for World Youth Day 2000

By Benedicta Cipolla
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When World Youth Day 2000 banners went up along the street leading to St. Peter's Basilica, pilgrims, as if on command, began arriving for the event.

Five days ahead of the Aug. 15 welcoming ceremony kicking off World Youth Day, the first wave of young people rolled into Rome on planes, trains and buses, with a handful taking a more traditional form of transportation -- their own two feet.

A group of 11 Italian youths walked 370 miles from the northern city of Mantua, arriving in Rome Aug. 10 with the official World Youth Day cross, passed on to the Italians following World Youth Day 1997 in Paris.

Joined along the way by many others for part of the journey, the group totaled 98 as it made its way into St. Peter's Square, the destination for many early arrivals.

As the countdown began in earnest, hundreds of the event's 25,000 volunteers could be seen roaming about the square, proudly wearing their assigned volunteer caps and T-shirts.

Giacomo Porcari, 18, a volunteer from the northern Italian city of Parma, said attending World Youth Day 1997 in Paris whetted his appetite for this year's gathering.

``I couldn't miss the opportunity to volunteer for a World Youth Day that coincides with a Holy Year,'' he said as he and his friends made their way to the Vatican Museums for an afternoon of viewing art.

Along with volunteers, other participants hit Rome's streets, eager to do some sightseeing before their days filled up with scheduled World Youth Day activities.

One U.S. group of 40 students and 10 chaperones departed July 29 from Long Island, N.Y., and took in Paris, the French Marian shrine of Lourdes and the French town of Avignon before making their way to Rome via Turin and Assisi.

The Marianist Province of Meribah organized and partially financed the joint trip between Chaminade High School in Mineola and Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, both on Long Island.

Standing under a blistering midday August sun in St. Peter's Square, the students, ages 16-17, appeared hot but full of energy as they described Masses at the Basilica of St. Mary Major and St. Peter's Basilica.

One highlight of their whirlwind trip, said John Graziano, was meeting young people from Chad in Assisi.

``We were dancing and singing with them in the square,'' he said.

Asked if the group was worried about the several-mile-long walk from drop-off points to Tor Vergata, the university campus on the outskirts of Rome hosting the Aug. 19 vigil and Aug. 20 Mass with Pope John Paul II, Marianist Father Thomas Cardone laughed.

``This is a pilgrimage. We do everything on foot,'' he said, prompting knowing smiles from the teen-agers.

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