Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

B® <$§ w _Q s: 0 •s* S» O CT> Co X o CD < S°s CX CL < Diocese oi£ "\*£%q q Savannah 1> J. Uijij Knights of Columbus INSTALLATIONS —SEE PAGE 6 Youth activities —SEE PAGE 7 Vol. 80, No. 28 Thursday, August 24, 2000 $.50 PER ISSUE p Pope tells young people to face challenges to faith with courage Pope John Paul II moves with a musical rhythm as he presides over a World Youth Day ceremony at the Tor Vergata campus of the University of Rome August 19. More than 2 million young people joined in a closing Mass the next day. By Benedicta Cipolla Rome (CNS) ntrusting the Gospel to the Catholic Church’s youthful core, a self-described “rejuvenated” Pope John Paul II told a human sea of World Youth Day participants to face challenges to the faith with courage. More than 2 million people gathered at Tor Vergata, a university campus on Rome’s periphery, for the August 15-20 youth event’s climax—an August 19 evening vigil and August 20 morning Mass. World Youth Day organizers and city officials called the crowd—equivalent to two-thirds of the Italian capital’s population—Rome’s largest in liv ing memory, and the celebration was thought to be the second-biggest papal event in history. At the 1995 World Youth Day gathering in Manila, the closing Mass drew 4 million faithful, but actual World Youth Day participants were esti mated to represent only one-quarter of the congre gation, with locals providing the bulk of the crowd. Pope John Paul first convened young people in 1984 in a prototype of World Youth Day and offi cially instituted the biannual global gathering in 1986. In Rome, arm-waving, chanting youths from 157 countries stretched as far as the eye could see, their vivacity little affected by a six-mile hike to the site in temperatures above 100 degrees. As Pope John Paul took a 45-minute spin through the throng in the popemobile, thousands lined the vehicle’s path to cheer the 80-year-old pontiff. Those more energetic ran alongside, leap ing into the air to glimpse the man many had trav eled across continents to see. Following a packed program of testimonies that brought tears to the pope’s eyes and multiethnic music and dance that got him tapping along on the arm of his chair, he told the crowd to persevere in their faithfulness to Christ—a message he empha sized in his homilies at the vigil and Mass. Although in today’s world Christians may not be (Continued on page 11)