Be sure to run for the hills in 2008 (1 Viewer)

[Generator]

Pell leads bid for Catholic festival
By Linda Morris
July 4, 2005


In an event to rival the Sydney Olympics, the Vatican will be offered venues at Olympic Park, Darling Harbour and the Opera House to win Sydney the church's biggest global festival and bring Pope Benedict XVI to Australian shores for the first time.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, will lead a high-level delegation to Rome this week to present the diocese's claim to stage the church's 11th World Youth Day.

Were Sydney to receive the green light, the week-long event of prayer, celebration and religious instruction for Catholic youth would be the largest public gathering in Sydney since the 2000 Games.

The final Sunday vigil Mass of World Youth Day planned for the boulevard of Sydney's Olympic Park and at which the Pope would preside would be expected to draw 250,000 people - including more than 80,000 overseas pilgrims.

The Sydney Catholic diocese is keeping confidential the cost of the event but the bill - put at more than $80 million - would be met by way of a participant's fee, Government assistance, corporate sponsorship and church funds.

The Department of State and Regional Development has estimated direct and indirect benefit to the state of between $65 million and $112 million in 2008 dollars.

The event has the enthusiastic support of the Premier, Bob Carr, and negotiations are under way with the Federal Government over visa and migration requirements.

In a letter to the Vatican, Mr Carr has pledged "the highest levels of co-operation" and provision at no or nominal charge of security, protocol, medical services, transport and public buildings.

The state's most senior public servant, the director-general of the Premier's Department, Dr Col Gellatly, is heading a co-ordination committee.

"We are also prepared to legislate, if necessary, to ensure the smooth facilitation of World Youth Day," Mr Carr writes.

A formal announcement of the winning site will be made in Cologne, site of this year's World Youth Day, in August. The final decision rests with the Pontifical Council for Laity in Rome.

Bids are secret, but Sydney's only competition is thought to be South Africa and Brazil.

The Sydney bid will argue that the World Youth Day has been held on every continent in the world except Africa and Oceania.

Cardinal Pell wants the festival, which is staged every three or four years, to be held in July 2008, giving as much time as possible for planning and coinciding with European university and school holidays.

Cologne is expecting 800,000 people aged between 16 and 30, although many believe that 2 million is a more realistic figure, as well as 600 bishops and 4000 journalists from all over the world.

Two thousand Catholics are travelling from Australia. Sydney's remoteness from Europe would be likely to mean smaller numbers of overseas arrivals in 2008, but the State Government expects a large tourism spin-off as many of those attending turn their pilgrimage into a backpacking holiday.

Most young pilgrims are expected to be billeted with Catholic families and put up in Catholic school halls and dormitories.

Cardinal Pell has been a strong advocate and, in the past, has hailed the event as an opportunity for the church in Oceania to strengthen the faith of young Catholics.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...tholic-festival/2005/07/03/1120329331505.html

Prepare for a period of Vatican roulette, bible readings and Roman Catholic rock.

 

[chookyn]

Thanks for the warning, will heed

 

[Rafy]

*sighs* we want to weaken the faith of young catholics, not strengthen it!!

 

[MoonlightSonata]

I always wondered whether there is like a guide book for vatican roulette?

You know like an official vatical method book.

I believe Tony Abbott runs a beginner's course down at Manly called "When you're rock solid: How to pull out without getting a mess on yourself".

 

[Meldrum]

Do Australians really care that much about religion?

Fucked if I'd go.

 

[Generator]

Hmmm. I just realised that when one runs for the hills in Sydney, they are heading off to the area dominated by the evangelical Prostestants. It's as though no matter what happens and where you go, you cannot escape the tide of 'morality' that seeks to subsume us all.

 

[Rafy]

Hillsong are up in the hills. Pope could go there.

 

[withoutaface]

I was about to say that, shoulda capitalised Hills in the title

 

[chookyn]

Hillsong are up in the hills. Pope could go there.

Ahhh... Protestants and Catholics. Together. Could get very entertaining. :uhhuh:

Maybe Houston and Benedict XVI could forget their differences and join forces to evangelise Sydney (oh the horror!)

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Alot of girls i've known that hang out at these hip churches are total sluts, they like pick up guys at church. I'd never seen a hillsong church before, so I was imagining your more traditional church and was like "wtf".

 

[absolution*]

"Catholicism: Bigger than Live 8!!!!!!!"

 

[Generator]

Pope announces youth festival for Sydney

 

[transcendent]

does everyone else get this advertisement in this thread?

 

[Scanorama]

does everyone else get this advertisement in this thread?

Same here lol

 

[Generator]

Vatican singles out faithless Australia

Vatican singles out faithless Australia
By Desmond O'Grady in Rome and Linda Morris
August 22, 2005


The Pope has issued a dire warning about the state of religious faith in Australia, saying mainstream Christianity is dying more quickly here than in any other country.

In remarks to priests in Italy, Benedict XVI spoke of a crisis for the main Christian churches as people in the Western world felt self-sufficient, with less need for Christ and Christianity.

"Certainly this is a suffering linked to the present historical moment in which generally one sees that the so-called mainstream churches appear moribund," he said. "This is so in Australia, above all, and also in Europe, but not so much in the United States."

He told the priests in the Italian Alpine diocese of Aosta that the Catholic Church was not as badly off as the mainstream Protestant churches, which were in a " profound crisis" because of sects.

Many people felt Christianity was antiquated, he said, whereas it actually represented the future because it responded to socio-ethical problems which could not be handled by an approach based solely on a scientific mentality.
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Pope Benedict made the comments during an improvised talk to priests on July 25. They were not released by the Vatican press office but appeared in the Vatican daily L' Osservatore Romano.

The source of his information about Australia is not known. His comment was in line with the judgements he used to make during his 24 years as head of the Vatican Doctrinal Congregation.

According to bid documents sent to the Vatican and obtained by the Herald, it was the parlous state of Australian Catholicism's spiritual health that was the driving force behind the request by the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, for World Youth Day 2008 to be staged in Sydney.

With a proposed spiritual theme of of "Take up your cross and follow Me", the week-long festival of confession and eucharistic adoration would sow the "seeds of many priestly and religious vocations".

The bid document says the event would increase church attendance among young people, bring more men to the priesthood and precipitate a new evangelism in Australia and Oceania.

It would also address spiritual challenges, the document says, such as media hostility to the church, ideologies and philosophies antithetical to the Gospel, a tendency to push Christianity to the margins and disorientation among young people about values.

Church attendance among the young was as low as in many parts of Europe, the church conceded.

 

[SashatheMan]

so why is this so special?

looks boring to me

 

[braindrainedAsh]

Oh God... like literally oh God... why are you doing this to us!

Does anyone else have an issue with government funding being used for this like it said in the first article... surely the church is rich enough to pay for their own propaganda fest.

 

[AsyLum]

Do Australians really care that much about religion?

Fucked if I'd go.

*cough* Hillsong *cough*

 

[Cyan_phoeniX]

oh, wouldnt this be a groovy BOS meeting. hahahahhahaha

see you all in 2008.. get your crosses ready and come follow me (to the pub and get drunk).

 

[Rafy]

I'd just wander among the catholic crowds shouting anti-god/church slogans....

I can just see me wandering the city streets shouting the pope is a socially irresponsible twat......Jihad on the catholic church!

ahhh i cant wait!