A Few Highlights from World Youth Day

(Photo credit: George Martell/Pilot New Media) Available for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives license.)
George Martell of Pilot New Media is traveling with the pilgrims to send back photos, YouTube videos, social media updates, and even real-time streaming video so that those who can’t attend in person may be virtual pilgrims. Follow the pilgrimage at http://www.wydrioboston.com.

In case you hadn’t heard, Pope Francis is currently in Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day. Although he didn’t get to go this time, Dom is coordinating the Archdiocese of Boston’s covereage. The kids and I are having fun following along. I thought I’d share a few highlights.

First, Pope Francis addresses Argentine pilgrims at World Youth Day.

blockquote>Let me tell you what I hope will be the outcome of World Youth Day: I hope there will be noise. Here there will be noise, I’m quite sure. Here in Rio there will be plenty of noise, no doubt about that. But I want you to make yourselves heard in your dioceses, I want the noise to go out, I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable, everything to do with clericalism, everything that might make us closed in on ourselves. The parishes, the schools, the institutions are made for going out … if they don’t, they become an NGO, and the Church cannot be an NGO. May the bishops and priests forgive me if some of you create a bit of confusion afterwards. That’s my advice. Thanks for whatever you can do.

Look, at this moment, I think our world civilization has gone beyond its limits, it has gone beyond its limits because it has made money into such a god that we are now faced with a philosophy and a practice which exclude the two ends of life that are most full of promise for peoples. They exclude the elderly, obviously. You could easily think there is a kind of hidden euthanasia, that is, we don’t take care of the elderly; but there is also a cultural euthanasia, because we don’t allow them to speak, we don’t allow them to act. And there is the exclusion of the young. The percentage of our young people without work, without employment, is very high and we have a generation with no experience of the dignity gained through work. This civilization, in other words, has led us to exclude the two peaks that make up our future. As for the young, they must emerge, they must assert themselves, the young must go out to fight for values, to fight for these values; and the elderly must open their mouths, the elderly must open their mouths and teach us! Pass on to us the wisdom of the peoples!

Pope Francis hearing Confession at ‪World Youth Day (via Pontifical Council for Social Communications on Twitter: http://twitter.com/PCCS_VA/status/360804604277059584/photo/1)

(The Pilgrims gather on Copacabana Beach to welcome Pope Francis.
Photo credit: George Martell/Pilot New Media) Available for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives license.)

Father Roderick, of SQPN, my favorite Dutch priest, does a nice videolog of Pope Francis’s arrival and the welcoming ceremony at Copacabana Beach.

For more coverage see Boston’s WYD page, SQPN’s WYD page, and The Vatican’s WYD page, where you can find videos, pictures, and the full text of Pope Francis’s various remarks, speeches and homilies..