“Explosion of joy”

It was a huge event: Cologne's World Youth Day five years ago attracted more than 400.000 permanent participants from almost 200 countries to the cathedral city. "Mega star" in the week of 16. to 21. August 2005, the pope elected just a few weeks earlier was. What has remained, five years later?

More than a million people celebrated with then-new Pope Benedict XVI. the final service on the Marienfeld near Cologne. Around 4.000 journalists made the major event also a media event. Experts attested to the church's masterful organizational performance – not to be taken for granted in view of the deaths and injuries at the Duisburg "Love Parade".

Pope Benedict XVI., who, for example, was celebrated with shouts of "Benedetto" during the boat trip across the Rhine, experienced an "explosion of joy", according to his own statement. The youth magazine "Bravo", which is not very close to the church, even published a poster of him. It was his first trip abroad, which led him quite unplanned to his home country of all places. He had made the trip to Cologne for his predecessor in office, John Paul II, who had died a few months earlier. started the tradition of the World Youth Days to enable young people to experience faith together. In Cologne, for example, there were not only religious events such as church services and catecheses, but also more than 1.000 cultural performances on 80 stages in and around Cologne.

Effect and effort controversial
There is a wide spectrum of opinion on the impact and cost of the "mega party of faith" – the title of a study on the WYD – which cost around 122 million euros. For the Koblenz sociologist Winfried Gebhardt, the hope of winning over young people who are far from the church has not been fulfilled. The WYD was a "Catholic ingroup event" for church-connected young people. In order to strengthen their identity, however, it does not need such a large meeting, Gebhardt puts a question mark behind the effort. However, he admits that smaller meetings, for example of dioceses, spiritual communities or associations, lack media impact.

It is precisely this aspect of the World Youth Day that the Bremen sociologist Andreas Hepp emphasizes: "The church is dead if it is not present in the media."Young people in particular can no longer be attracted by church services, but by "community experiences. The pope plays a major role as a guiding figure – even if many young people do not share his positions on sexual morality, for example. His colleague from Dortmund, Ronald Hitzler, sees it similarly: The WYD participants "had above all youthful interests: having fun, meeting other people. And when even Cardinal Meisner starts having fun, fun really is."

Cardinal enthused
The host Archbishop of Cologne, on the other hand, spoke of "spiritual and faithful depth" at World Youth Day and expressed hope for its continuation. For the federation of the German catholic youth (BDKJ) and WJT co-organizer there is absolutely this lastingness, how federal chairman Dirk Tanzler stresses. The "Days of Encounter" in the dioceses, which preceded the WYD, had especially contributed to this. Thereby, sustainable partnerships between the parishes and their foreign guests developed, "an unbelievable profit". After the night prayer with candlelight, there were also spiritual innovations in the youth ministry, Tanzler sums up and refers to evening "nightfever" services in many cities.

Georg Austen, the former WYD secretary, who is now head of the Bonifatiuswerk, is similarly committed to passing on the faith in the diaspora. The WYD, he said, has especially contributed to the worldwide interconnectedness of the church. While the major meeting did not turn around the Church's difficult situation. But the young people were immersed in a "climate of faith" that was positively experienced. For the future, he says, it is important to make possible on a smaller scale similar "value with an event character".

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Christina Cherry
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