A simple and clever context
World Youth Day is stamped with an understanding of what makes young people tick, MICHAEL VALPY writes in his on-line column

By MICHAEL VALPY, Globe and Mail Update
Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Faith groups like the Roman Catholic Church and people like Pope John Paul II, said Mr. Weigel, don't parse politically; they're trying to speak deeper truths.

Not every Catholic will agree.

Nevertheless, Mr. Weigel's words came to mind today as I watched tens of thousands of young Catholics flood into Toronto's lakefront Exhibition Place for the opening mass of the church's World Youth Day. The mass, celebrated by Toronto's Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic, tells a story. Before the ancient religious liturgy begins, young people in different coloured shirts begin climbing up the stairs to the altar like hikers climbing a mountain. Some are running, some are going up backwards, some are confused about which way is up. And three people are left behind: a young blind man and a woman pushing her handicapped daughter in a wheelchair. You get the point?

This is a story about life. Eventually the people in the different coloured shirts, instead of being disparate individuals heading off in every which way, come together as a community. Eventually they remember they have to help the young blind man and the mother and her handicapped daughter. And the reason I thought of Weigel's words, of course, is because I don't hear this story as a journalist, I hear it as the father of a teenager.

I would not mind if my son had wanted to be at this place today to hear this message. I think it's already part of his values but there's no harm in re-inforcement.

The context of World Youth Day is both simple and clever, stamped with an old showman's understanding of what makes young people tick: They want to be together in a huge herd doing exactly the same thing. They are incredibly romantic. They still believe in the attainability of an ideal world. They want to be stirred, touched, moved, lifted out of themselves, preferably in union with a couple of hundred thousand others and with loud music as a backdrop.

So the mass today, concerts every night, instructions in the church's teaching and social projects around town during the day — there won't be an elderly person in Toronto able to get across the street without help. A massive march through town on Saturday and mass Sunday with John Paul.

Loaded with symbols. Character-forming. Okay stuff.