World Youth Day: Twenty Years Ago

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Twenty years ago this August Denver hosted World Youth Day, the first time the world event took place in the U.S. As WYD director of communications, I was on a core team from Washington with Father Dennis Schnurr, WYD executive director and now archbishop of Cincinnati, and Paul Henderson, WYD director of programming and now director of planning and communication operations at the USCCB. We’ve remained friends, with the kind of friendship borne of going to war together.

When I speak about WYD, I compare it to an elephant, one you gently prod to move where you’d like it to go, but knowing at any moment it could overpower you. If we knew how big WYD would become, we would have been afraid. With blissful ignorance, we set off for a fun adventure.

Though founded in Rome in 1985, WYD hadn’t quite caught on. The Vatican thought that holding the event in the USA would establish it. They counted on the immense media presence and U.S. ingenuity and organization. Their confidence was well placed.

As a reporter in Rome, I had traveled with Pope John Paul II. But sitting on a plane with him was a far cry from organizing media for an event to draw about 2,000 journalists and setting up a structure for TV and radio coverage. Early on, I took my concerns to Tim Russert, enthusiastic Catholic and host of NBC’s Meet the Press. With an analysis reflective of a man used to working within walls of power, he explained how to work with the media. “You own the pope, so you’re in charge,” he said.

Now if you want to be empowered, convince yourself you own the pope. When TV producers would balk at our plans, I would remain calm because, as Russert had assured me, I owned the pope. Russert also offered the help of veteran NBC special events producer Bob Asman, who had just organized the TV pool coverage of the Democratic National Convention in New York City. “We’ll call him the ‘secret missionary for God,’” Russert laughed. Asman so impressed the TV stations in Denver that had formed a consortium to deal with the largest event they’d ever known, that they hired him almost as soon as they met him.

When Catholic youth heard about WYD, they responded in force and surprised the bishops. Youth begged to go to the church event instead of church leaders begging them to go. Bishops who traveled with them found it life changing. It was a booster shot for the shepherds to be surrounded by energetic sheep. Their enthusiasm caught reporters up short. Media geared up for protests, but they never materialized. When one reporter asked a girl about her feelings on birth control and abortion, she told him teen-style, “Get a life!” The days were for prayer, not protest. The Washington Post reported the event was like Woodstock, with all of the good and none of the bad of the 1969 rock concert at a farm in the Catskills.

When I returned home, I had WYD on my mind. I must have overdone it because a friend told me one evening as we went down to Washington’s Union Station that all I talked about was World Youth Day. “I’m sure it was wonderful for you,” she said, “but let it go.” When we got to the station, a teenager bounded toward me across the Main Hall. “Hey, Sister Mary Ann,” he shouted. “Remember me? We met at World Youth Day. It was great.” My friend laughed, “Case closed,” she said, “I guess it was an event to last a lifetime.”

World Youth Day: Life-Changing Moment with Pope Benedict

World Youth Day this year is in Madrid, Aug. 16-21, and almost 30,000 young people from the United States alone will participate. Thousands others can join the virtual World Youth Day on Facebook, www.facebook.com/virtualworldyouthday.

I have affection for World Youth Day because I was on the leadership group that launched the event in 1993 in Denver. Pope John Paul II founded World Youth Day in 1985 as a biennial event starting in Rome, with subsequent meetings in Buenos Aires; Santiago de Compostela, Spain; and Czestochowa, Poland. When the event did not catch on worldwide, Vatican organizers asked the U.S. bishops to host it in America. They thought that U.S. media might give it the profile it needed. Were they ever right!

This was a new experience for the church in the United States. Bishops met a from-the-ground-up movement. Instead of leaders urging youth to participate, they found youth all but demanding to go. Many in the hierarchy were taken aback. What the youth sought was unusual and unprecedented. Some lay leaders questioned bringing raging hormones together and said we were looking for trouble. Fortunately, the U.S. bishops decided to take the risk.

In Europe the event had been designed for young adults; minors were discouraged from attending. The U.S. bishops, who from experience with Catholic schools and religious education programs recognized potential in this group, successfully argued for lowering the minimum age for attendees from 18 to 16, and added the component of youth leaders to head delegations.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was asked to organize the three-day event and initially guesstimated about 60,000 youth would be interested. In a few months, local organizers presented the bishops with a budget problem. About 120,000 young people had registered for the event in the first few months alone.

The thousands of participants changed the bishops’ view of young people. Until then, the bishops had seen youth as the church of tomorrow. After they met them together, they began to refer to them as the church of today. Idealism en masse offered hope. The young people brought out the best in one another and in the adults privileged to be with them.

Before the event, media reported the trite but seemingly eternal story of a church divided. But, when media got to Denver, that story wasn’t there. Graying editors at home demanded to know what youth thought about birth control and abortion. Some reporters dutifully interviewed people along these lines. The youth were incredulous. We’re not talking about things like that, youth replied. One exasperated coed told a reporter, “Get a life!” Another reporter for a newsweekly advised his editor that the youth weren’t talking about his issues. In fact, they weren’t fighting with the church at all. When World Youth Day concluded, the Washington Post reported that it was like Woodstock, with all of the good and none of the bad of the 1969 rock festival.

Pope Benedict was elected in 2005, just months before World Youth Day was to be in Germany. Youth from around the globe cheered when the German pope said he would continue the world meeting and see them in Cologne.

World Youth Day brings youth and the pope together. There is no other world leader or even national leader who has made such an outreach. The pope challenges youth, before politics, church or otherwise, can jade them. He calls them to deepen their relationship with Jesus, recognize that they are in a family comprised of a mix of languages, nations, color and even religious beliefs. World Youth Day helps them realize they have a personal relationship with Jesus at the same time it expands their concept of community beyond a coterie of friends, or even of the parish. It can be life-changing and, with its emphasis on peace and world community, world-changing as well.