World Youth Day 2008
World Youth Day is big. Really big. The closing Mass at the last one, which was held in Germany in 2005, was said to have 1 million people in attendance.
The next one is in Sydney in July next year. And organizers are expecting 200,000 registrants from all over the world. As one person described it, “a tidal wave of catholicism is about to hit Sydney”.
Just recently on the nightly news we got the first glimpse of what this is going to mean for Sydney and Australia. The equivalent of the Olympic torch (we were told)—a 3.8 metre high wooden cross and an icon of Mary—arrived by plane with great fanfare and amidst the cloying of politicians, including the Australian Prime Minister and the State Premier, both positively glowing about what a great thing this event was going to be.
Consider this an early warning alert for the tsunami. It's time to ensure your sheep are safely on higher ground, if they are not already. They need to understand that what Catholicism means when it heralds the cross as a great symbol of the faith is not the same as what we mean. They need to understand why Mary is so venerated in the Catholic church, and not in our churches.
We're very pleased that we were tipped off even earlier, and were strongly urged to produce a resource to help. As a result, due for release by Matthias Media in September is Nothing in My Hand I Bring: Understanding the differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant beliefs, by Ray Galea. Keep an eye out for it, and please pray with us that it will be very helpful to people in the next 10 months in particular. You can download the first chapter for free (770kb).