World Youth Day 2005: Discovering who we are and what we believe

We walked three miles from the little town of Horrem, Germany, to Marienfeld – the field where Pope Benedict XVI was to preside at a Saturday evening prayer service and Mass on Sunday morning. Thousands and thousands of young people walked the same dirt road that we did. They prayed and sang in many different languages. They carried flags, banners and backpacks. They brought sleeping bags, blankets and bottled water. Their objective was to camp out overnight with perhaps 1 million others (rain or shine) and to discover the transforming power of faith in Jesus Christ.

I walked with my wife, Sharon, and our son, Danny, and two of his cousins, Brian and Chris Hudec. We had come with 175 other pilgrims led by Indianapolis Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein “to worship Him.” Our spiritual journey began in Italy where we paid our respects at the tomb of Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and then we traveled to Assisi to pray for peace. Now we were in Germany to greet Pope Benedict XVI at the Cathedral in Cologne and to pray with him at Marienfeld.

The invitation to World Youth Day 2005 was first issued to young people of every race, language and culture by Pope John Paul II, who founded these celebrations of faith and spirituality in the 1980s. The late pope was convinced that youth can have a powerful influence on the evangelization of modern culture. Young people are not simply the Church’s future. They can make a difference now through their energy, their spirituality and their vibrant faith. Throughout his long pontificate, John Paul II made a special effort to reach out to young people. They repaid him with an outpouring of faith and spirituality that boldly contradicted all the prophets of doom who say that Christianity is “outdated” and does not appeal to young men and women today.

The spirit of John Paul II was clearly evident during World Youth Day 2005. (The dedication of a huge bronze bell named for the late pope was one of the highlights of the Saturday evening Vigil Service – prompting shouts of Giovanni Paulo il Grande! from thousands of young Italians.) But the new pope, Benedict XVI, was not overshadowed by his charismatic predecessor, who was also his friend and spiritual father. Cries of “Benedetto!” and “Wir sind Papst!” could be heard wherever the young pilgrims gathered. The outpouring of love and affection for the new pope was genuine and unreserved – in spite of the fact that this Holy Father is a shy man and a scholar, not an actor or an athlete like John Paul II.

Two days earlier, with more than three hundred thousand young people representing 193 countries, we greeted Pope Benedict XVI in Cologne. We stood in the Cathedral Square, while others gathered along the banks of the Rhine and on the streets of the city (the oldest city on Germany, founded by the Romans in ancient times). The Holy Father traveled 10 miles down the River Rhine on a triple-decker cruise ship filled with young people. When he arrived in Cologne, smiling and waving enthusiastically, he was welcomed with great joy and excitement. Speaking in five different languages, the pope appealed to us: “Open wide your hearts to God! Open the doors of your freedom to his merciful love! Share your joys and pains with Christ, and let him enlighten your minds with his light and touch your hearts with his grace. Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy, has a name and a face: It is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives fullness of life to humanity.”

Many years ago, when he was a professor of theology in his native Germany, Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) delivered a series of lectures to his students (the young people of his day) on the Apostles Creed. These reflections on what it means to profess the Christian faith (later published as Introduction to Christianity) describe the Credo (the “I believe”) of Christian faith as a personal declaration of “where I stand” in relationship to the most important questions and issues of human life. As an individual human being, in communion with others, the believer declares himself or herself as one who takes a stand – for the primacy of truth and love, for a God who cares about each one of us and our world, for a way of life that rejects isolation and individualism in order to reach out to others in a profound expression of confident hope for the future.

The hundreds of thousands of young people who came together in Cologne and at Marienfeld for World Youth Day 2005 were making a powerful statement of faith in Jesus Christ. There is more to life, we said, than the values proclaimed by popular culture today. Fame and wealth and power are not the meaning of life. True love is so much more than the erotic images and casual encounters shamelessly promoted in advertising and the entertainment industry. In Christ, we take a stand – for life and for love. And so, the pilgrims at Marienfeld sang, over and over again, “Jesus Christ, you are my light. You are my life. Alleluia!”

All day Saturday, and well into the night, the crowds of pilgrims came, walking the same dirt road, praying and singing. By nightfall, the immense field was filled to overflowing with people whose only purpose was to gather in prayer and to experience spiritual communion with Pope Benedict and with one another. According to the Holy Father, the pilgrims’ prayers and songs, their perseverance over many miles of open field, and their witness to a way of life that is two thousand years young proclaimed a message of hope to “so many of our brothers and sisters who are waiting, without realizing it, for the star to rise in their skies and lead them to Christ, the light of the nations.”

In Introduction to Christianity, then-professor Ratzinger wrote that each person who says “Amen!” to faith in Jesus Christ is placing his or her life on the line – not because of an idea or a political agenda or even a noble cause. Christian faith is always a personal encounter, a relationship. It is a declaration of love that proclaims: “I believe in you, Jesus Christ, as the meaning of the world and of my life.” The believer who says, “Amen!” to faith in Christ is saying, in effect, “This is where I stand. I believe in you, Jesus Christ, as the way, the truth and the life – for me and for all who seek to live fully and be free.”

Standing in a vast open field in Germany, in the midst of an enormous crowd of people, ought to make us feel small and insignificant. After all, even this immense gathering of people is just a tiny fraction of the world’s population. What kind of arrogance or self-delusion is it to think that Jesus Christ cares for me personally – among all the people in this field and the billions more who inhabit our tiny space in the immensity of the universe? Can the declaration of faith and hope made by those of us standing in this crowd at Marienfeld have any reality whatsoever? Or is this simply a form of propaganda not unlike the mass hysteria experienced here in Germany not so long ago?

Each person gathered here in Marienfeld for the World Youth Day celebration, and every human being the world over, must confront this fundamental question about the meaning of the world and of his or her life. Are we here on earth as the result of random chance (the accidental happening of a vast uncaring mathematical system)? Or is there an intelligent, loving and free “someone” who is responsible for the world and for my life? Can it be (as Christians believe) that the Almighty God who created, redeemed and sanctifies our world knows me personally, loves me, and calls me to a purposeful life with Him?

According to Pope Benedict XVI, the man or woman who professes faith in Jesus Christ says “Amen!” to the incomprehensible idea that each person standing in this immense crowd at Marienfeld is known and loved by God. Each person here is called to have a personal relationship with the God of the universe, who has declared once and for all in Christ, that He rejects entirely any notion that He must be remote and impersonal simply because He is the almighty and all-knowing Creator of the universe. Standing here with a million other people from all over the world, we affirm paradoxically that we are not a nameless, faceless crowd. On the contrary, we proclaim with all the exuberance (and innocence) of youth that we are sons and daughters of one Father who loves us all equally and who challenges each one of us to assume his or her rightful place in the one family of God.

The shy, scholarly pope who describes himself as simply “a humble laborer in the Lord’s vineyard,” has welcomed us in Cologne and in Marienfeld with a genuine warmth and enthusiasm. The role of media superstar is clearly new to him, and as he stands before the microphones and television cameras reading his prepared remarks, it’s evident that this is not a “career path” he would have chosen for himself. But Pope Benedict responds to the challenges and opportunities of this moment with profound conviction. He believes that the Holy Spirit has called him (through his peers in the College of Cardinals) to be the successor of St. Peter – the symbol of unity among Christians and the Church’s chief teacher and pastor. He takes this enormous responsibility seriously, and so he reaches out to us, and to all Christians, Jews and Muslims, urging us to be people of peace. He urgently pleads for the revitalization of Europe’s Christian heritage and its ethical and moral values. And he challenges us to take Christ seriously, as he does, and to encounter Him personally as the light of nations and of our individual lives.

Whenever young people gather, their T-shirts proclaim who they are. In the crowd at Marienfeld, we read thousands of different messages – from support for sports teams and rock groups to product endorsements to city names as diverse as San Francisco, Sydney and Sao Paulo. My favorite T-shirt said on the front, “I love my German shepherd.” And, on the back, it contained a smiling portrait of Pope Benedict XVI. Who would have imagined even a year ago that young people the world over would be singing the praises of Joseph Ratzinger, a conservative 78 year-old cleric from Bavaria who for two decades dutifully (but quietly) refereed doctrinal disputes on behalf the popular Polish pope?

I love my German shepherd, “Benedetto,” the German “papst.” He has reminded us who we are and what we believe. We have sung with him: “Jesus Christ, you are my light. You are my life. Alleluia”

Along with hundreds of thousands of my younger brothers and sisters standing in this field today (and with millions of others the world over), we can say with Benedict XVI: I believe in you, Jesus Christ, as the meaning of the world and of my life. Amen.

-Daniel Conway
Cologne, Germany
August 21, 2005

(Daniel Conway is a member of the editorial committee of the board of directors of Criterion Press Inc.)