Good, clean fun at muddy mass site

Huge Catholic sleepover leads to dancing, kissing games and other strange behaviour

By GRAEME SMITH AND WALLACE IMMEN, The Globe and Mail
Monday, July 29, 2002

The two-day Roman Catholic festival in northwest Toronto left behind discarded socks, broken umbrellas, orange peel, melon rind, fragments of candle holders, plastic sheeting, water bottles, religious pamphlets, empty tubes of sunscreen and arthritis cream, and vast expanses of wet cardboard trodden to a pulp.

These remnants only hinted at the scale of the sprawling, ramshackle camp that sprang up to welcome the Pope for the conclusion of what will likely be his last Canadian tour.

Visitors began arriving on Saturday, camping on the rutted fields and cracked tarmac of the former military air base.

The forecast called for rain, so they built makeshift shelters and settled down to watch the evening vigil on giant video screens.

Loudspeakers continued to blare music until about 3 a.m. yesterday. Some pilgrims cringed in their sleeping bags and covered their ears, but many others wandered the grounds to check out the nightlife.

Couples kissed in the dark edges of the field.

In the busy pathways, groups learned to play a traditional Polish game in which young men and women pick a different partner to kiss every few seconds.

"Basically, the guys and girls pick suitors," said Mariusz Bak, 16, of Mississauga, flushed and sweating from his turn at the centre of the game. "I probably won't sleep too much tonight."

Elsewhere, other packs of chanting teenagers learned a game which involved strangers rubbing their buttocks together.

Another group marched in a circle around a five-piece band, singing, and yet another gaggle cheered on some break-dancers.

"It's mostly really clean stuff," said Catherine Spellman, 20, of Massachusetts.

Some of the delegates disagreed. A priest led a band of conservatives to shame a group of revellers by kneeling beside them, praying, and spraying them with holy water.

"[The dancers] just ignored them, basically, and didn't stop," said Giselle D'Souza, 20, who wore a cardboard sign around her neck that read, "Hug me, I'm Canadian."

Francis Gallic, part of a group from Bridgewater, N.J., that spent the night sleeping under plastic sheets, said there was so much singing, dancing and game-playing through the night that he managed only about two hours of sleep. "But that's been typical for this week," he said.

Those who did try to sleep were awakened around 6 a.m. when the first of yesterday's rains hit, sending pilgrims scrambling for shelter and flooding many patches of ground.

One man said he commandeered one of the portable toilets to wait out the storm.

Jonathan Hasmatali, 16, from Toronto, abandoned his efforts to rest in his drenched sleeping bag.

"I'm soaked," Mr. Hasmatali said.

"But it's totally worth it."

Many visitors woke early anyway, pushing for spots along the plastic barriers that lined the papal procession route.

They spent hours jockeying for position, passing the time by singing religious songs and national anthems.

The showers relented briefly but then returned, angering people whose view of the papal route was suddenly blocked by umbrellas and tarpaulins.

"Hey, you don't need umbrellas," said André Paliga, 17, of Ottawa, hitting an umbrella in front of him. "Yes, I'm talking to you."

Danny Schroeder, 17, of St. Louis, Mo., clung to the outside of a scaffolding for about an hour, until he could get snapshots of the Popemobile.

"My hands feel kind of like they're going to fall off," he said.

By the time John Paul began to speak, the blowing rain was tearing the cloth-covered lights from utility towers and making the loudspeakers sway so menacingly that pilgrims ran away and vaulted over fences in fear of falling equipment.

Rod Lenz, 47, huddled with his group from Wray, Colo., under a tarpaulin and used his cellphone to dial the number for his priest back home, asking him to pray for better weather.

"We don't need this rain," Mr. Lenz said, holding out his soggy hands.

"I'm getting all wrinkly."

Barely an hour later, the rain stopped, the clouds broke, and the sun shone.

Some worshippers slept through the papal mass, but at the front of the crowd they stood with rapt attention in the ankle-deep mud.

As the Pope announced that the next World Youth Day would be held in Cologne, Germany, a large cluster of Germans cheered and began jumping up and down, splattering them all with mud.

"I have no more dry clothes. I am so happy I do not care," said Martin Smolka, who lives in a town south of Munich.

Despite the discomforts of the weekend, many said they hope to attend the next World Youth Day in 2005.

Lindsey Pathuta, in a group of teenagers who spent the week sleeping on the floor of a church in Mississauga and sharing one shower, said she was happy the week was about over.

But would she do it again?

"In a heartbeat," she said.