Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 64(1) February 2014

World Youth  Day  in Rio  de Janeiro

Fr Dominic Allain

Standing looking down over Rio de Janeiro, arms outstretched in welcome and protection is the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer.  It affords different aspects and moods as you see it from different perspectives: now distantly in a gap through skyscrapers, now seemingly close at the end of a boulevard, some times in a clear sky, sometimes swathed in cloud, but always there when you raise your eyes; a powerful symbol of the search for faith.  It is to recognise this presence of Christ more fully in their lives that a group of thirty-three pilgrims from South London including two priests, two seminarians, and students aged sixteen years and upward travelled thousands of miles to World Youth Day in Rio last summer. The driving force behind our group were the twin grandsons of the late Dr David Morrell, a CMA stalwart, who were so inspired by the experience of WYD Madrid in 2011 that they were able to enthuse a large number of their fellow young Catholics to commit to a long preparation of prayer, catechesis and fundraising which culminate in our arrival in Brazil after 28 hours of travelling.  Priests and parishioners often lament the lack of young people in their pews, and agonise over what to do to stem the haemorrhage of the young.  It is a fact that young people come together around shared activity, and the shared activity of pilgrimage- preparing for an epic journey - is the perfect vehicle for a parish youth group because you ground this activity in the World Youth Day model of prayer, catechesis and building a civilisation of love.

World Youth Day is a bit of a misnomer.  In reality it involves six days of events in the host city and it now follows an established pattern.  On Tuesday there is an opening Mass, and on the next three mornings the young people gather at locations all around the city for catechesis and Mass celebrated by a bishop who speaks their mother tongue.  This catechesis and sacramental life is an essential part of the event and it is wonderful to see the young people literally sitting at the feet of the bishops being instructed so powerfully by the bishops and able to put questions to them. On Thursday the Pope arrives and there is a welcoming ceremony and address.  On Friday there is a huge open air Stations of the Cross, on Saturday the pilgrims gather for a Papal vigil in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and then sleep the night al fresco to be there for the Papal Mass which concludes the pilgrimage on the Sunday. The last three events all took place on Copacabana Beach, which produced those extraordinary pictures of the crowds. World Youth Day gathers literally the largest crowds in the history of the human race.

I wish it were possible to convey something of the atmosphere of being part of such a gathering. For World Youth Day an entire city is taken over by a benign army of young people, priests and religious. Rio de Janeiro that week was a city of 3.5 million young Catholics preaching by example.  Rio became a kind of living church for those days, for this benign invasion was of pilgrims, not tourists, and they are pilgrims before they are Brazilians or Americans or Germans or Italians. 

The old cliché about there being no strangers, only friends you haven’t yet met, felt quite true  The pilgrims – instantly recognisable by their brightly coloured knapsacks and bandanas – would greet one another with genuine love and respect wherever they went  amidst the kind of holy chaos involved in getting around. The good will even surmounts language barriers. There were some very powerful encounters when the young people suddenly realised that their faith does unite in a way that defies culture and geography.  One of our pilgrims told me that after one such meeting on the beach he surprised himself by saying to his newfound friend as they parted, “See you in heaven!” (These days of course, it might also be on Facebook in the virtual meanwhile).

One quickly accepts the surreality of being surrounded everywhere you go by crowds of young Catholics from every continent, and easily begins to feel that such a civilisation of love is how we are meant to live always.  It becomes normative to see crowds of young nuns in MacDonald’s saying grace before they tuck into their burgers or young people sitting in groups on grass verges praying the rosary.  You saw youngsters wearing tee-shirts bearing legends like, “I love the Mass,” “Resist Moral Relativism,” or “Keep Calm and Make Disciples.” There is an atmosphere of joy and peace, even though the crowds are vast, and amidst a sort of carnival atmosphere, a deep sense of purpose and faith, making this an amazing collective.  And then suddenly this vast crowd would fall silent and still to listen to the Pope, or as Christ came to the assembly in the Blessed Sacrament, only to erupt again in song a few minutes later.

As a pastor, what I love above all, about World Youth Day is that it creates a bubble, a space for these young people where piety is natural, normal and unforced, a zone in which they can explore and compare feelings about the practice of the faith in the same way as they do everything else about their growing experience, that is, with reference to their peers, but also with explicitly formed by the Church’s sacraments and the larger memory of her preaching. The witness of other young people to faith is why the young are energised by World Youth Day.  This energy really does result in a more committed practice amongst the youth and many vocations of different kinds.

The pilgrims’ devotion to the person of the Holy Father and Pope Emeritus Benedict is amazing to behold.  “We are the youth of the Pope,” is the chant wherever you go, drowning out the voice of one small protest we witnessed.  I had to feel sorry for the handful of evangelicals Protestants who stood by the entrance to the huge road tunnel which was the final approach for the pilgrim walk to Copacabana with banners proclaiming “You should listen only to the bible” as a vast army of pilgrims took all day to walk blithely past to listen to the Pope.  Pope Francis spoke to them like a parish priest, praising and cajoling and exhorting to courage. He told them he is counting on them to go out and be missionaries, to defend life, to serve the poor and they cheered, all 3.5 million of them.  That’s quite a noise.  Long after the excitement has faded, that sound will stay with them, reminding them in a way that nothing else quite can, that their peers have a passion for Christ. 

Fr Dominic and the members of “Take a Stand” WYD Pilgrimage would like to give heartfelt thanks to those CMA members who so kindly gave them financial support and to assure them of their prayers.