So far, volunteers outnumber local registrants

By MICHAEL VALPY, The Globe and Mail
Monday, July 22, 2002

Twenty-three thousand local volunteers. But only 17,000 local registrants -- from Canada's largest archdiocese, with 1.5 million members.

Theories abound: Young Torontonians haven't thought they needed to register in advance, or they haven't heard anything about World Youth Day in the media they pay attention to, or they don't think John Paul II will be physically strong enough to attend, and without the Pope there is obviously no show.

(Residual Sept. 11 jitters and the Canadian government's lack of generosity with visas have been cited as reasons for the total low number: slightly less than 200,000 registrants, compared, say, to the 4.5 million who attended the 1995 WYD in Manila, Philippines, and even the 600,000 who in 1993 went to Denver -- surely not a more interesting city than Toronto.)

A couple of Canadian cultural reasons suggest themselves . . .

Take a look at The Epiphany of Our Lord Roman Catholic Church in Toronto's far northeast corner, a large, modern brick and concrete building that operates in Italian and English and sees a lot of use.

On a sweaty Sunday afternoon it is full of teenagers practising a dance-and-drama routine for tomorrow's WYD opening mass at Exhibition Place.

They will be acting out a story of people of different colours struggling up a mountain and coming together to find happiness. "Sort of like life," says 21-year-old Ryerson University fine-arts student Frances Wong, one of the choreographers.

Certainly like life in Toronto.

Seeing them rehearse is to experience one of the joys of living in the city; every colour and cosmography of humanity is dancing around the altar.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu's phrase comes to mind: "The rainbow children of God." Toronto really is the global community in one place.

Directing the production is the church's pastor, Rev. Vito Marziliano, a delightful Friar Tuck of a priest in baggy pants, sandals and a double-extra-large T-shirt.

If anyone can get young people to WYD, it should be him. Kids flock to the parish for his homilies, his sense of fun, his contemporary masses, the music and, of course, the fact so many other young people are there.

But when not enough young people signed up to meet the church's quota, Father Marziliano lowered the age limit of those permitted to attend from 16 to 14 -- bringing happiness to Annalisa Pastore and Menaka Abeyewardene, both 14.

They like their church because of its community of young people, because of the friends they've made and the things they do together.

They want to participate in WYD for the same reasons: the sense of community, of joining 200,000 other young people.

That's teenaged mental machinery.

But Ms. Wong, the choreographer, acknowledges she probably wouldn't attend WYD if she weren't in the dance production. She and Katie McMahon, 21, a Ryerson journalism student -- both women have taken dance lessons since the age of 6 -- were asked by the nearby Catholic high school they attended to work on the production, along with a third student, Amy Chan.

"I'm a bit lost, a bit confused about my spirituality," Ms. Wong said.

"I am searching for something that feels right, and I want to find it on my own."

Ms. McMahon, too, says she would not be attending WYD if she weren't with the dance. She said, carefully: "It's sometimes difficult to find the right spiritual connection."

So cultural reason No. 1: What Ms. Wong and Ms. McMahon are saying is what a large percentage of young Canadians are saying, that spirituality is important in their lives but they are exploring it independently of the institutional church.

And cultural reason No. 2: A Catholic school chaplain at Epiphany yesterday said many students aren't attending WYD because they're so anxious about having enough money for their college and university tuition that they won't take time off from their summer jobs.