Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley believes World Youth Day in Panama can be “a life changing experience" for young people he explained in an interview with America and two other news outlets: El Pais (Spain) and Corriere della Sera (Italy).
The archbishop of Boston is a veteran of W.Y.D. “I’ve been at 10 W.Y.D.’s. I’ve been at every one since Denver, except for Manila.” He considers W.Y.D. as “part of the genius of John Paul II, the ministry to young people which he began as a priest and carried out as a bishop and pope.” He was referring to the fact that the Polish pope began these extraordinary international gatherings of Catholic youth in Rome in 1985, and since then some 25 million young people from all continents have attended them and given rise to much fruit.
“In the United States, some 40 percent of our seminarians attended W.Y.D.,” the cardinal said. This fact “shows the impact that this has on young people.” He noted that so many young people today “feel isolated, they feel alone in their faith” but when they come to W.Y.D. “they meet hundreds of thousands of their peers from all over the world, and this is a very affirmative experience. It really is a life-changing experience for a lot of them.”
The cardinal described W.Y.D. as “an extraordinary event in the life of the church,” which “helps people to understand that we are a Catholic church, and [that] we do have a lot of young people, millions of Catholics of every shape and size, of every language and culture from different parts of the world.” He said, “they come together, and it is very exciting for them to have such an experience, and [to] have the connection with the pope, the successor of Peter, our history, the wonderful liturgies, the joy that young people feel being together with the Holy Father.” W.Y.D. “is just an extraordinary grace for the church,” he said.
W.Y.D. “helps people to understand that we are a Catholic church, and [that] we do have a lot of young people, millions of Catholics of every shape and size, of every language and culture from different parts of the world.”
Looking back over the ten that he has attended, starting in Denver with John Paul II, then going to Cologne, Germany and Sydney, Australia, with Benedict, and now coming here with Francis, he sees how each pope, in their different ways has made a unique and very personal contribution.
At the same time, he said, “each of them brings the connection with Peter, with the church, and of course Francis brings a Latin American input and the people of Latin America are just thrilled that here is one of their own and the excitement he provokes is just extraordinary.”
The United States has brought one of the largest number of young people here, he said. He has accompanied 150 from the Archdiocese of Boston, whereas normally around 500 would have come. It was difficult to have such numbers this year because of the academic year.
The cardinal underlines that “this W.Y.D. was organized precisely for Central America, to give young people in this region who would never get an opportunity to travel, to get visas, to pay for the trip to other parts of the world, the opportunity to attend.” He noted that it is summer time in this part of the world and in South America, and said Panama is the logical place to have the WYD because of its security and facilities.
He was particularly struck by the number of young Catholics from India, many of them from the Syro-Malabar rite, who attended, and were present when he gave a catechesis this week. He said it was “wonderful” for the young Bostonians “to see them come from so far, and to see them so joyful and enthusiastic about their faith. It just has been a wonderful experience.”
