More than 100,000 Roman Catholic pilgrims from around the world swarmed Sydney Harbor, waving the flags of their countries and singing to usher in the opening of the World Youth Day festival.
The star of the show, Pope Benedict XVI, remained ensconced at a retreat on Sydney’s outskirts where he was resting before joining the celebrations today.
The scale of World Youth Day was revealed when pilgrims arrived in droves and gathered along a waterfront on Tuesday near the city’s landmark harbor bridge for a twilight Mass.
PHOTO: EPA
Rites, including Holy Communion, hymns and a sermon by Sydney’s Archbishop Cardinal George Pell, left many in tears.
In his homily, Pell urged the pilgrims to keep the faith through self-discipline and prayer.
Tuesday’s Mass began with a procession of groups from 168 countries, waving their national flags as they entered a former commercial wharf in downtown Sydney, renamed Barangaroo.
Meanwhile, the scandal over child sex abuse by Catholic priests flared again yesterday.
The father of two girls abused by a Melbourne priest, one of whom committed suicide, has said he and his wife would travel back to Australia from Europe within the next few days for a confrontation.
Anthony Foster told the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) he would not accept an apology unless the pontiff also changed the way the Church and its lawyers dealt with victims of sex abuse.
“I want them to set up a system which provides lifetime help to victims, a system where they beg forgiveness of the victims,” he said.
He said he hoped the pope would meet him to hear his demands for the Church to adopt a new approach to the victims of abuse.
Foster’s daughter Emma committed suicide this year aged 26, after struggling to deal with abuse by a priest while she was at primary school. Her sister Katie was also abused and turned to alcohol in her teens before being left brain-damaged after being hit by a car while drunk, the broadcaster reported.
The priest involved, Father Kevin O’Donnell, died in 1997 after serving time in jail for multiple sex offenses, but the Fosters fought an eight-year legal battle for compensation from the church for the abuse, the ABC said.
World Youth Day coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher told reporters at a regular briefing that most people were focusing on the positive aspects of World Youth Day “rather than dwelling crankily as a few people are doing on old wounds.”
But Pell described Emma Foster’s story as “tragic”, saying he apologized to her and her family in 1998.
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