austraLasia #2196


WYD Focus shifting to Sydney

SYDNEY: 13th July 2008 --  With the arrival of the Holy Father just several hours ago at Richmond Airbase (outside the Sydney metropolitan area), the world's focus on WYD shifts to Sydney.  Up until now, the 'Days in the Diocese' events have engaged young people from Australia and the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, in any one of the 32 dioceses of the nation. Australia, with a population of 21 million, has more than 5 million Catholics and the latest census indicated that Catholics make up 27% of the faith groups in the nation.
    The Salesian events, which began with the Melbourne event at Chadstone already reported here and by ANS, now also shift to Sydney, with the Engadine event on 16th July.  As with the Melbourne event this too will be attended by the Rector Major.  But with many Salesian pilgrims from around the world also moving to Sydney for the key 15-20 July WYD moments, Engadine should see pretty much all of these groups come together in one great Salesian international festival in the most comprehensive of Salesian presences in the nation.  Engadine is known for its Boys Town, Parish, Primary School (FMA), Secondary College (SDB), Youth Centre, John Paul II Village for the Elderly, and a host of other activities.  It will resound, on Wednesday 16th July with thousands of additional youthful voices.
    Three items of interest for readers from outside of Australia who are doing their best to follow the 'Salesian' aspect of all this.
One is to note the involvement of 'Missioni Don Bosco', a Mission and Development office based in Turin at Valdocco, and possibly better known in parts of the world for its close association with Telepace and quality Catholic Video production. MDB has a team in place to visually document the Salesian events and is teamed up with Telepace for a live broadcast which will link Sydney with Colle Don Bosco (in Italy on 19th July - it will already be the 20th and final WYD in Australia). As well as MDB, the Salesian Youth Movement of the three Venetias, DonBoscoLand, with its www.donboscoland.it website has worked in with a host of other agencies in Sydney to produce www.wydcrossmedia.org a site where news, images and voices meet. Somewhat obviously it is a multimedia site but well worth a look.
     A second point of interest is the extensive USA presence, amongst others of course from Asia and South America.  SUE (New Rochelle) Province as some 180 young pilgrims in Australia at the moment, in three groups.  One is a combined SDB/FMA group of 60 plus led by Frs Steve Ryan, Tom Provenango, Ryan Phelan and Sr Maryann Schaefer,  a second group of 40 Korean-American pilgrims led by Fr Gus Baek, and a third group of Vietnamese-Americans led by Frs Paul Chuang Nguyen and Dominic Tran.  They detoured first through Vietnam and have spent some time already in the extensive Vietnamese-Australian scene as well, where Salesians are prominent. The SUO (San Francisco) Province also has a group of 40 or more pilgrims in Australia.  You can follow their progress by going to their blogspot at www.sdbyouthusawest.blogspot.com (where you will find some excellent photos of Bulli Pass, south of Sydeny and closer to Engadine!).
    The third and for the moment final point of interest is the Pope's WYD Message.  I am putting this up in many languages, including Khmer and Burmese is we can overcome some script problems, in SDL.  (go to sdl.sdb.org without www in front of all that). It's there in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian at the moment, and we hope to add Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Khmer, Burmese in the course of today.  And, incidentally, for some of these latter-mentioned, it will be the first item in those new collections - confrères are encouraged to send Salesian materials in these languages of our region so we can provide an even better service.
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Title: australasia 2196
Subject and key words: SDB General, SDB Provinces AUL, SUO SUE, WYD
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2196