World Youth Day trip extraordinary: Pope
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Pope Benedict XVI has described his trip to Australia for World Youth Day as "an extraordinary experience" which demonstrated the youthful face of the Roman Catholic Church.
Speaking before the weekly Angelus prayer at his summer residence outside Rome, he paid tribute to "the multicoloured mosaic created by the boys and girls from every part of the earth, all reunited by one faith in Jesus Christ".
"I still have in my eyes and in my heart this extraordinary experience, in which I was able to meet the youthful face of the Church," the Pope said.
Pope Benedict thanked the church and civil authorities in Australia for their cooperation in organising World Youth Day, which brings together young Catholics from across the world every two or three years.
Hundreds of thousands of people, including about 135,000 young people, attended a mass on July 20 marking the end of the events in Sydney, and the Pope, in Australia since July 12, returned home the following day.
The next World Youth Day will be held in Madrid in 2011.
The Pope also announced he would be going on holiday on Monday (local time) to Bressanone in northern Italy, where he would stay until August before returning to Castel Gandolfo and beginning preparations for a September trip to France.
- AFP
