La Jornada Mundial de la Juventud 2011 estará “profundamente enraizada en la cultura y religiosidad españolas”
workshop World Youth Day 2011 will be "deeply rooted in Spanish culture and religiosity".
Its executive director , Yago de la Cierva, highlighted at the University of Navarra the role of the 20,000 volunteers from all over the world who collaborate in the organization of the events.
"The workshop World Youth Day Madrid 2011 will maintain the structure of previous editions, but will be deeply rooted in Spanish culture and religiosity". This was expressed at the University of Navarra by Yago de la Cierva, its executive director and world spokesman, who participates in the roundtable 'Benedict XVI. An approach to his figure' together with the professor of the School of Theology Pablo Blanco.
As an example of these two aspects, he emphasized that WYD "will be very nocturnal, with many activities at night. In addition, the missionary character of the Spanish Church will be very present; not in vain, it is due to him that half of the Catholic world speaks Spanish. He has also left his mark in Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa...".
He also said that another of the events core topic will be the Stations of the Cross: "The religious festival par excellence in our country is Holy Week. That is why steps from all the provinces will be used: Andalusia, Castile and Leon, Valencia, Murcia... The idea is to use Christian art to present the Gospel, with the peculiarity of the Spanish tradition".
More than one and a half million attendees expected
The executive director of WYD Madrid 2011 stressed the importance of the 20,000 volunteers from countries such as France, Poland, Honduras, Costa Rica, Taiwan and Australia, who collaborate with the organization of the events, which are expected to be attended by more than 1.5 million people. "Participation is open to everyone. Only a small percentage of those who attend will register. There are 9 months left and more than 200,000 have already done so, so we are way ahead of previous conference", he said.
On the other hand, Yago de la Cierva said that the recent visit of the Pope to Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona has been "a good preparation for the WYD in August, whose goal is to achieve a meeting staff with Christ. In addition, it has demonstrated the special predilection that Benedict XVI feels for Spain. It is necessary to realize how many countries have asked him to go; we have already had him twice and he will go a third time next year".