By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Bishop Larry Silva will lead the Hawaii delegation to Sydney, Australia, for World Youth Day, July 15-20, 2008. The event, a Vatican-sponsored event for young people attended by the pope, is expected to draw the largest crowd ever in Australia.
Danny Casey, the chief operating manager of the event, told Catholic News Service in September that he expects 500,000 people at the final open-air Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI at Sydney’s Royal Randwick Racecourse. He said that would make it the “largest gathering of people in the history of our nation.”
The Australian planning team expects about 25,000 from the United States, though it concedes that number may be too conservative.
The diocese is organizing a single travel group through its Office of Diocesan Services. Patty Kalua‘u of Sacred Heart Parish in Hawi on the Big Island is the group’s coordinator. She organized last year’s pilgrimage of Hawaii youth to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, the first time various Hawaii parish youth groups traveled to a World Youth Day event together.
The Hawaii group’s trip as now planned will be a 13-day adventure including five days in New Zealand before the start of World Youth Day events. The cost is $4,754 per person, which may be broken into monthly payments from now until February 2008. A non-refundable initial deposit of $400 was due Oct. 1.
Hawaii travelers will leave July 9, 2008, and arrive in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 11 after crossing the International Date Line. The first day will include city tours and a Mass at St Patrick Cathedral.
The next two days will be spent soaking up Maori culture, small towns and natural wonders. The group will celebrate Mass daily at different sites.
On Monday, July 14, the group flies to Sydney. Travelers will have a chance to tour the city’s historic and coastal areas before the following day’s World Youth Day’s Mass of Welcome, celebrated by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney in Telestra Stadium at the 2000 Olympic Village.
July 16 through 18 are “days of catechesis” taking place at various locations around the city. The evening of Saturday, July 19, will be spent under the stars at the Royal Randwick Racecourse for the vigil with Pope Benedict. The following morning, the closing Mass with the pope will also be celebrated at the racecourse.
Cardinal Pell, chairman of the local organizing committee for World Youth Day, announced the final Mass site on Oct. 6. He said the racecourse, located about three miles south of Sydney’s central business district, offered the best combination of “space, uninterrupted sightlines and transport links.”
The 202-acre racecourse can accommodate 400,000 people. An additional 200,000 pilgrims will be able to see the pope arrive and watch the final Mass live on big screens in the adjacent Centennial Park.
The racecourse has hosted three previous papal Masses, by Pope Paul VI in 1970 and Pope John Paul II during his 1986 and 1995 visits.
The young pilgrims leave for home on July 21.
The theme for the 2008 gathering is “You Will Receive Power When the Holy Spirit Has Come Upon You; and You Will Be My Witnesses,” taken from the Acts of the Apostles, 1:8. The Pontifical Council for the Laity organizes the international World Youth Days.
Although it will be winter in the Southern Hemisphere in July, the World Youth Day 2008 Web site lists the average July temperatures in Sydney to be a high of 66 degrees and a low of 49 degrees Fahrenheit — comparable to Paris, London or Washington in May.