After a week-long celebration throughout Sydney, local World Youth Day organisers say they are thrilled with a final mass attendance of more 400,000 people at Randwick Racecourse today. 

Chief operating officer Danny Casey said World Youth Day in Sydney has been a success for the host city and the Catholic Church in Australia.  

“It was an extraordinary sight to see more than 400,000 people gather for mass on a grey Sunday,” said Mr. Casey. 

“This is certainly the largest Catholic Mass ever celebrated in our country.” 

After over 200,000 pilgrims slept overnight at the venue following the WYD08 Evening Vigil, hundreds of thousands arrived this morning for the final official activity on the WYD08 program. 

Referring to Australia as the “Great South Land of the Holy Spirit”, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI enthusiastically waved and greeted pilgrims as he made his way through the giant crowd before the commencement of the Mass. 

As well as celebrating with those in attendance, His Holiness also thanked Sydney for hosting the week-long festivities before announcing Madrid as the next host city for World Youth Day in 2011. 

“It has been an unforgettable week,” said Father Mark Podesta, WYD08 spokesperson who also concelebrated the WYD08 Final Mass with His Holiness. 

“Both the formal celebrations and the presence of the Holy Father have allowed the joy of so many young Catholics to infiltrate our international city.” 

The final farewell of the Holy Father will be at Sydney airport tomorrow when he boards his Qantas flight to Rome at 10am. 

The Diocesan team ran into Fr Ross today at Hyde Park. Fr Ross was very proud as he walked the bridge with thousands of pilgrims from North Sydney. Fr Ross has been renamed Fr Thomas by the WYD tagging process so we may have to give him a different greeting when he gets back home. His photo was interesting as well.

The Diocesan Team has been staffing a makeshift office at the Hyde Park Plaza each day from 8:30 until 10 am. Other team members ferried passes across the city to pilgrim bases, found lost pilgrims and have become good directors of lost souls who have ended up in various parts of the city. Many thanks to Carmel, Joan and Lyn for their stirling work. Also thanks to Lee and Fr Anthony for directing the whole show. As we reach the closing of the week we have manged to get everyone’s passes or have made arrangements for them to be collected.

All team members will be changing their ringtones and message alerts after fairly constants calls, but all are so glad to have been part of the support team and helping everyone out as we have met some of the Diocese’s most amazing people.

Many of the 300 official Armidale Diocesan pilgrims have crossed the Bridge  and journied to Randwick Racecourse of as it has been renamed for WYD Southern Cross Precinct. (SCP) We know that quite a few non registered pilgrims from the Diocese have made teh journey to be part of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

 It was a spectacular sight to see so many young people singing, praying and dancing their way to SCP. Our pilrgims are spread across the SCP and are looking forward to the candle lit vigil with the Holy Father. While not all pilgrims will stay to sleep out most will be back in the morning for the final celebration of Mass with Pope Benedict.

The Diocesan team will watch the vigil at their hotel before making an early start to Randwick to be part of the final celebrations. Fr Anthony will join with a number of priests from the Diocese along with Bishop Luc to concelebrate Mass tomorrow morning.

ABC radio has provided fantastic coverage of the progress of Armidale Diocesan pilgrims. Fr Holy Smoke has provided daily updates for Kelly Fuller, Lee has done radio interviews with Richard Standley and one lucky pilgrim from the Moree pilgrims has been providing daily updates. So if you want to know more about WYD events follow them on ABC radio.

If you would like to see fantastic photos of the events of WYD2008 use the following link or visit the SYdney CEO website. There are a wide range of pictures and images.

http://www.ceosyd.catholic.edu.au/cms/Jahia/pid/3522

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI today delivered a heartfelt apology to the victims of sexual abuse by clergy in Australia. 

Departing from his official homily, the Holy Father said: “Indeed, I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured, and I assure them that as their Pastor, I too share in their suffering.” 

The apology was delivered during a special service at St Mary’s Cathedral – the Dedication of a new altar before seminarians and other young religious people. 

The Pope consecrated (blessed) the new white marble altar, featuring an image of the body of Jesus Christ, based on the sacred Shroud of Turin. As he addressed the full cathedral and forecourt, he used the new altar to highlight their role. 

“Dear young seminarians and religious, you yourselves will become living altars, where Christ’s sacrificial love is made present as an inspiration and a source of spiritual nourishment to everyone you meet.” 

Earlier today in his daily text message, the Holy Father said: “Dear friend, u must be holy & u must be missionary: never separate holiness from mission – BXVI”.  

Following the Mass, the Pope lunched with 50 current and retired Australian Bishops in St Mary’s Cathedral House. 

In Terrey Hills, more than 350 cardinals and bishops from overseas were enjoying a lunch hosted by the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell.  

Meanwhile tens of thousands of pilgrims had already made their way across the Sydney Harbour Bridge by lunchtime as part of the Pilgrimage Walk from North Sydney to the Southern Cross Precinct (Randwick Racecourse) for tonight’s Evening Vigil with the Holy Father.  

Youth Festival performers including Bronx rapper Fr Stan Fortuna and popular Christian artist Matt Maher are entertaining pilgrims at Randwick from 12 noon until the Pope’s arrival after 6.30pm. 

The Evening Vigil will begin at 7pm with a Lighting of the Candles ceremony. The event will focus on the lives of the 10 WYD08 patrons including Blessed Mary MacKillop, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Saint Maria Goretti.  

As part of the Vigil, the Pope will lead Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction. He will then depart, and pilgrims will sleep-out under the stars.  

The Pope will depart Southern Cross Precinct at 9pm and return tomorrow at 9am for a helicopter fly-over and motorcade through Centennial Park and Randwick Racecourse. The Final Mass will begin at 10am.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI continued his packed schedule of meetings and events on day six of his visit to Sydney for World Youth Day 2008 (WYD08).  

The Holy Father started his day in the usual WYD08 way - with morning prayers and his daily inspirational text message: “The Spirit impels us 4ward 2wards others; the fire of his love makes us missionaries of God’s charity. C U tomorrow nite – BXVI” After 500,000 people turned out to welcome him to Sydney yesterday, an expected international TV audience of 500 million has seen the powerful re-enactment of the Stations of the Cross - the last moments of Jesus’ life.  

This morning, the Holy Father held private meetings with the Governor of NSW, Marie Bashir; the Premier of NSW Morris Iemma; and the Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore and their families.  He then prayed with other Christian leaders in the Crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral where he thanked Bishop Robert Forsythe from the Anglican Church and Cardinal Pell after they both gave addresses.  

He also extended his warm wishes to Cardinal Edward Cassidy, former President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who could not attend the event due to ill-health.  His Holiness applauded the ecumenical effort of Australians: “Australians cherish cordial and frank discussion. This has served the ecumenical movement well.  An example would be the Covenant signed in 2004 by the members of the National Council of Churches in Australia.” 

But he also spoke of the importance of moving forward: “Dear friends in Christ, I think you would agree that the ecumenical movement has reached a critical juncture.  To move forward, we must continually ask God to renew our minds with the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us through the scriptures and guides us into all truth.  “We must guard against any temptation to view doctrine as divisive and hence an impediment to the seemingly more pressing and immediate task of improving the world in which we live.  In fact, the history of the Church demonstrates that praxis is not only inseparable from, but actually flows out of, didache or teaching.” 

Following this prayer, he met representatives of other faith traditions in St Mary’s Cathedral Chapter House. Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence from the Great Synagogue in Sydney and Sheik Shady Alsuleiman from the National Council of Imams both gave addresses. In his role as spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict thanked the 40 people in attendance for their work in bringing peace and faith to the community.  “My dear friends, I have come to Australia as an ambassador of peace. For this reason, I feel blessed to meet you who, likewise, share this yearning and the desire to help the world attain it.  Our quest for peace goes hand in hand with our search for meaning, for it is in discovering the truth that we find the sure road to peace. Our effort to bring about reconciliation between peoples springs from, and is directed to, that truth which gives purpose to life.  Religion offers peace, but more importantly, it arouses within the human spirit a thirst for truth and a hunger for virtue.” 

The Pope then dined with 12 lucky young people from across the world. Those chosen were:  ·        Armando Cervantes: 27, USA·        Clare Dooley: 30, New Zealand·        Craig Ashby: 21, Australia ·        Fidel Mateos Rodriguez: 25, Spain·        Gabriel Nangile: 28, Papua New Guinea·        Helena de Sousa: 25, East Timor·        Ijeoma Jacinta Igwe: 25, Nigeria·        Jean Fabien (Muaka Muaka Baloza): 29, Democratic Republic of the Congo·        Jorgiana Aldren Lima de Santana: 26, Brazil·        Marie-Bénédicte Esnault: 22, France·        Teresa Wilson: 31, Australia·        Wonhyong Cho: 28, Korea The Pope and young people dined on sweet potato and pear soup for entrée, Chicken Diane for main course, and lemon and passionfruit meringue pie for dessert.  

The Holy Father then attended the first station of the Stations of the Cross event - The Last Supper, on the steps of St Mary’s Cathedral - and then watched the event from the Crypt of the Cathedral.  More than 270,000 people were expected to watch the Stations at event sites around Sydney. 

The Holy Father’s final meeting started at 6.45pm where he met disadvantaged young people from Australia at the Sacred Heart Church in Darlinghurst.  Young Australians Samantha Gerdes and Andrew Holmes addressed the Holy Father at this meeting. 

Tomorrow, over 180,000 people are expected to walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge as part of the Pilgrimage Walk which begins at 5am. Youth Festival events at Randwick Racecourse begin at 12noon and the Evening Vigil with the Pope will begin at 7pm.  

What a day, Armidale Diocesan pilgrims join with thousands of local and international pilgrims to watch the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI into Sydney today. Our pilgrims were at Farm Cove, Darling Harbour, Circular Quay, Barangaroo, Lady Macquarie’s Chair on the support flotilla and even one pilgrim on the Sydney 2000 with the Holy Father.Photos to follow tomorrow.

Barangaroo was once again packed full of joyful pilgrims from all around the world. The shouts of Benedicto were deafening and the atmosphere was electric. The crowd on board the Sydney 2000 were singing, dancing and waving flags.

The fifty pilgrims from Uralla we treated to a fantastic catechesis session at the Sydney Entertainment centre this morning. The chief animator was one of the Sister from the Missionaries of God’s Love who worked with the Diocesan Aboriginal students from Years 8 to 12. The atmosphere was fantastic and the Spirit was certainly present amongst the 5 000.

The Armidale pilgrims were caught enjoying the excitement at Hyde Park today and if you look in today’s Telegraph you can see the Hanrahans. The Armidale pilgrims were in Willoughby for Catechesis and the feed back was very positive.

Bishop Matthys was one of many Bishop s from Australia and around  the world you were part of the 150000 strong crowd at the Official Opening Mass of WYD2008 hosted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney George Pell.     

The Armidale Diocese was well represented in the crowd with all groups managing to get in as far as the Diocesan Committee knows.