Youth Speak News

TORONTO - All too often, people don’t understand how they operate or what their core values are, said Jesuit Father Monty Williams, creator of the fall film series at Toronto’s Regis College.

Exploring the theme “Discernment: Finding God in the World,” the series at the Jesuit college at the University of Toronto will help participants better understand their own value system through looking at how they deal with ethical situations.

“It’s significant today because the value systems that are given to us come from a whole range of ideological standpoints — even within the Church,” said Williams. “So it’s very important for a young person on their spiritual journey to at least have some understanding of what values are becoming incarnate in them.”

They call it Canada’s poorest postal code. When you walk a few blocks past Vancouver’s highrises and shopping districts, you’ll find a different city. People crowd the sidewalks at the corner of East Hastings and Main Street. It’s a district known for its poverty, homelessness, drug abuse and prostitution. It’s a part of town most try to avoid — all but one group. They’re an army dressed in red and their weapon is prayer.

They’re called Agape. It’s a Catholic Christian Outreach ministry whose mission is to reach out to the women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and offer them a message of hope and love through Jesus. Agape helps women who are addicts and prostitutes, many of whom are also homeless.

Agape means “God’s love,” to serve, expecting nothing in return. Volunteers in red jackets walk the streets every night of the year. They always proclaim the same message: God loves you and the only way to escape the bonds of addiction is through a relationship with Jesus. Agape teaches that for those who suffer, God can be a source of strength, comfort and unconditional love.

TORONTO - Andrew Santos recently landed a full-time position at Salt + Light Television as an associate producer. A former member of the Youth Speak News team, Santos says YSN played a huge role in forming his vocation as a journalist.

Santos, now 21, says his YSN editors always challenged him to think outside the box and to be as creative as possible.

“And to this day, I still find myself exercising great care when it comes to my work.”

And with a new year of Youth Speak News kicking off, another team of young writers will have the same opportunity to jump headfirst into Catholic journalism.

My days in Madrid for World Youth Day were filled with so much grace. For a whole week, thousands upon thousands of people gathered in one spot to celebrate the fact that Christ is risen.

But the secular media there did not focus its stories on the amazing concerts, fantastic catechesis, wonderful prayer events and the general atmosphere of joy that was emanating from pilgrims.

It focused on the protests.

At this World Youth Day, more than a thousand people gathered in one of Madrid’s city squares one night and shouted hateful words to the passing pilgrims. I experienced the aftermath — police had blocked off the entire square and my group’s hostel was a mere block away from the protests. I was actually quite riveted by the fact that this happened, and so was everyone in Madrid, pilgrim or not. That the protests struck such a chord with everyone shows one thing: in matters of the Catholic faith, you need to pick a side.

Who am I? This ultimate question of self-identity will cross everyone’s mind at some point in their lives. The answer, for Catholics, is quite simple: we are all God’s children regardless of race, colour, age, socio-economic status or disability. We are all equally welcome in the house of God.

But in our world today, living out God’s message and recognizing the presence of God in all of creation is often undermined. Racism and other forms of discrimination develop and begin to fester in society. As a result, God’s message cannot be recognized and some individuals fail to hear God’s voice amidst all of the prejudice.   

In Joan Steinau Lester’s young adult fiction novel, Black, White, Other: In Search of Nina Armstrong, the 15-year-old protagonist, Nina, has an identity crisis of her own. Her world is in a muddle. In the midst of coping with the pressures of her first year of high school, Nina begins to question who she is and where she truly belongs. Nina is bi-racial, or, as she prefers to call it, “scrambled.” She is feeling torn between two worlds and feels that she has to choose between the African-American descent on her paternal side or her mother’s Irish heritage.

If it were up to me, Madrid would not have been my first choice for World Youth Day. Unlike most people, I am not a fan of the heat. In fact, I am slightly heat intolerant. When I found out I would be taking this pilgrimage, I knew it would be a challenge and that God would somehow use this trip to teach me how to take up and embrace my daily cross.

God took His first opportunity during the opening Mass when I began to get overheated, weak and overwhelmed by the crowd. Nearly fainting from heat exhaustion, all I could do was pray the words, “Jesus help me, Mary protect me.”

After my group fought its way through the crowd, we found refuge in an air-conditioned restaurant where others nursed me back to health with the help of some pilgrims from Ireland. Throughout my sufferings, God gave me the grace and strength to rejoice amidst the chaos and offer up my weakness for the conversion of the youth at World Youth Day. I was inspired by the way my friends and fellow Catholics came together to help me and I found myself thanking God for allowing me to be a victim — something I had never been able to do before.

Alan Law wanted to know why the gates were closed so early at Cuatro Vientos air base on the eve of the papal vigil at World Youth Day. So he posed this question on the wall for the official World Youth Day Facebook group, run by event organizers.

“Why were the gates closed so early? A lot of people were locked out,” wrote Law, who is a product development manager with Tour Design, a travel company that brought many Canadian pilgrims to Madrid.

He waited for a response but heard nothing. So the next day, he checked again. To his shock, he couldn’t find his comment. It had been erased.

As group leaders and pilgrims settle back home after World Youth Day, discontent at the fact that an estimated 250,000 pilgrims were locked out of Cuatro Vientos airbase for the overnight vigil and closing Mass is starting to be vocalized. Some 1.4 million pilgrims showed up for the overnight vigil and World Youth Day organizers were only equipped to handle about a million, turning away registered pilgrims from around the world.

VATICAN CITY - The gathering of more than 1.5 million young Catholics at World Youth Day in Madrid was an event that left the 800 bishops present feeling encouraged, said Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

"In a world shaken by wars, economic crises and social discouragement, the youths who gathered with the pope had only one message to spread: Christ lives," the cardinal told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

"That is extraordinary because it encouraged the bishops, as well, in their mission as teachers of the faith," he said in the interview published Aug. 26.

Hundreds of bishops led the formal catechesis sessions at World Youth Day Aug. 16-21.

MIDLAND, Ont. - Madrid wasn’t the only place where Catholic youth were gathered in force on a rainy, hot August weekend.

At Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland, Ont., another group of young Catholics made its own pilgrimage. And while it didn’t boast World Youth Day’s attendance of nearly a million and a half pilgrims, the Office of Catholic (OCY) Rally was still alive with the faith of the young. The annual rally, which ran from Aug. 19-21 this year, brought together about 600 Catholic youth ages 14-35 for a high-energy weekend of prayer, music, celebration and fun.

“It gives them a chance to feel like they’re connected to the universal Church,” said John Dawson, program co-ordinator and music director of the OCY. “Young people all over the world are celebrating at the same time.”

In fact, as pilgrims in Spain were walking the Stations of the Cross on the evening of Aug. 19, so were the young people in Midland — separated only by the six-hour time difference. Masses were celebrated at the same time of day, by Pope Benedict XVI in Madrid and Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins in Midland. The two events also shared the same theme, “Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith.” The rally truly had WYD pegged down to a tee, even right down to the thunderstorms on the Saturday. But the Midland pilgrims — like those in Spain — didn’t let harsh weather dampen their spirits.

MADRID, SPAIN - The papal welcome ceremony at Plaza de Cibeles Aug. 19 was easily one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I ended up being only a few feet away from Pope Benedict XVI as he passed through the streets of Madrid in the Popemobile. Although it all feels like one big blur, here is a breakdown of what led up to the day’s grand finale.

1:27 p.m.: After meeting with the Office of Catholic Youth group, the leaders told us we needed to get to Cibeles as soon as possible in order to secure good seats. With a big Canadian flag being held up high to lead the way, we started walking very briskly. This soon turned into running through the streets. When we got to the front entrance, half our group made it in but the other half (my half) was stopped by police and told we had to enter the square via a different route. We changed our route and kept on running.

2:25 p.m.: We made it in. After changing our location three or four times, we re-locate to a spot near the papal route (where Pope Benedict would pass — so we were told — in the Popemobile before the ceremony).

3:05 p.m.: Reality kicks in. We realize we have about five hours to wait before the Pope arrives. We are directly in the sun and sitting down on the ground is not a good option — without a towel or mat the ground is extremely hot. I lather on SPF 60 sunscreen and begin the countdown.