World Youth Day was inaugurated by Pope John Paul II in 1986 as a way for young people from all over the world to get together with him and to reflect on their mission in life and in society. In alternate years this event was to be held in Rome, but in the other years it would take place in different cities around the globe: Buenos Aires, Compostela, Czestokowa, Denver, Manila, Paris, Toronto… For the 20th World Youth Day, Cologne in Germany had been chosen.
On 2 April 2005, before the gathering, John Paul II had died after twenty-seven years as Pope. His funeral brought the whole world to a standstill as millions of people flocked to Rome to attend it in person, and many millions more were glued to their television sets. Less than three weeks later Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope and took the name Benedict XVI. A German by birth, one of his first public utterances was to confirm that he would be attending World Youth Day in Cologne. Indeed, it would be his first trip abroad as Pope, a 'return visit' to his country of birth. It was no surprise that the number of people wanting to attend World Youth Day grew substantially in the weeks leading up to the event.
Forty-five of us from Netherhall House and Grandpont House joined the World Youth Day celebrations. The group included several language students from the international summer course held in Netherhall House every summer. Later we were joined by another thirty, who had come from Kelston, Westpark and other centres in the UK
On Saturday morning all seventy-five of us visited Cologne Cathedral. By now most of the pilgrims had already been to the Cathedral so the queues to enter were short. It did not take us very long to get to see the famous Cologne reliquary, in the heart of the Cathedral, which according to tradition contains the bones of the 'Wise Men' who worshipped Christ in Bethlehem. Eventually we made our way to Marienfeld. About 800,000 young people gathered there that Saturday evening. Many spent the hours of waiting moving around and meeting other young people, or bumping into those known from other cities or countries.
By the time Pope Benedict arrived in the early evening everyone was in place. The greetings were enthusiastic as the Pope was driven around the field. Eventually he reached the altar area and started the Vigil which lasted three hours. When it ended, after 11.00pm, it was completely dark and the whole place was lit up by hundreds of thousands of small candles
We spent the night in the field, using our sleeping bags and got up early to prepare for the Final Mass that Pope Benedict would celebrate at 10.00am. The Pope had gone back to Cologne for the night and returned on Sunday morning. More people than ever came for this final event of the World Youth Day, with over a million attending the three-hour Sunday Mass. The way back took many hours as moving over a million people into town was a logistical nightmare. Most of us took the rest of the day just to reach the airport. Pablo and Rodrigo, two English-language students from the Netherhall Summer Course, managed to reach Cologne in record time and – through a complex series of coincidences – contrived also to meet the Pope on 21 August.
The group from Kelston returned by minibus via the Netherlands, where they stayed a couple more days. The rest of us took a flight home on Monday morning, very tired but still excited about a terrific weekend spent with a million young people from all over the world.