'Catholic Woodstock' on the Rhine

By Jane Little
BBC News, Germany

As young pilgrims pack Cologne to celebrate World Youth Day with Pope Benedict XVI, Jane Little witnessed exuberant expressions of faith by believers of all nationalities.

Scenes from the Mass

German pride was in evidence this week, but it did not have all that much to do with the German Pope.

Marek, a stubbly, ear-ringed twenty-something had made the pilgrimage from Bavaria, accompanied by a 10-metre-long wooden ark.

He glowed with pride as he showed me inside what turned out to be a surprisingly modern take on the biblical vessel.

It was all cube furniture, fake grass and flat computer screens with strips of white plastic protruding from the curved walls.

"Why the plastic strips?" I asked, assuming they were an abstract representation of all the animals Noah had packed into his ark.

No, Marek, explained, Noah had brought the animals in two by two but these strips were about bringing everyone in the world together in peace. Ah yes, of course.

Mass celebration 

This is a huge Catholic Woodstock. It is hard to move for the packs of young people, draped in their national flags, sporting matching World Youth Day rucksacks, and singing and dancing their way through the streets of Cologne.

Safe to say that never has the Gothic cathedral, towering rather haughtily over the River Rhine, ever seen such exuberant expressions of the faith

Italians - wearing blue t-shirts with pictures of a smiling Benedetto on the front, call out "dove" to groups wearing all the colours of the rainbow.

Brazil, Ireland, USA, Ghana, come the joyful replies.

They scribble autographs on each other's flags, exchange badges and stickers and then move off to their next mass, lecture or musical celebration.

Safe to say that never has the Gothic cathedral, towering rather haughtily over the River Rhine, ever seen such exuberant expressions of the faith.

Though it has seen its fair share of pilgrims over the centuries.

Worship

Cologne - economic, cultural and historic capital of the Rhineland - is also a major pilgrimage centre.

An ornate golden sarcophagus in the cathedral is believed to contain the bones of the Magi, or the Three Kings who travelled to worship the newborn Christ.

They provide the motto for this year's World Youth Day: We have come to worship him.

Cologne is also the place where St Ursula and the legendary 11,000 virgins were said to have been martyred by Attila the Hun.

And when the man everyone was waiting for arrived on Thursday, he spoke of the city's kings and martyrs as strong witnesses to Europe's great faith.

Disciple

Pope Benedict stood on a boat on the wide river that cuts through the heart of Europe, and issued a rallying cry to the thousands lining the banks to revitalise the faith in what he calls the "old" continent.

For every T-shirt of Benedict there is a key-ring of his beaming Polish predecessor

Concerned that we in the West are sinking into an anything goes morality - a "dictatorship of relativism" as he famously said before his election, his first foreign trip has signalled that stemming the flow out of Europe's churches will be a major priority for him.

And the man who said he, like Jesus, will be a fisher of men knows that he has to make young Catholics his crew.

On the banks they stood and cheered, their priority to catch a glimpse of the distant white figure who may or may not live up to the late beloved John Paul.

He is still very much in evidence. For every T-shirt of Benedict there is a key-ring of his beaming Polish predecessor.

Evangelism 

World Youth Day was the creation 20 years ago of John Paul and the church deems it to be a very successful evangelistic tool; reinvigorating the faithful and strengthening the traditional faith.

World Youth Day is held in a different part of the world every three years

And certainly if the Catholic Church in America has always had a reputation for being a bit too liberal, it was young Americans here who sounded most in line with the conservative Pope Benedict.

Daysha from De Kalb, Illinois, told me that he is perfect because he stands for the truth.

She is one of a growing band of young people who are, according to studies, more conservative than their parents.

They want certainty, tradition, discipline. Perhaps, ironically, it is the young Germans who are challenging that here.

Tobias Raschke, a curly-haired, fresh-faced 26-year-old was handing out postcards in support of condoms.

"The Pope does not get it," he told me, "but I do and I am the future."

I had visions of a latter-day Martin Luther going to nail his condoms postcard to the cathedral door.

That is if he could get anywhere near it.

Glitches

It is chaos, mayhem, said one English bishop who told me that the Germans' reputation for efficiency was ill-deserved.

Exasperated that he was corralled onto a boat where he could not hear the Pope, food was in short supply and no-one knew where they were going next, he said that "they - the Germans - make the Italians look super-efficient."

If there have been a few glitches in the organisation it does not seem to bother the vast numbers of young people who spend hours queuing for trains and bottles of water.

And if they need a break from all that drumming and singing, they can always take refuge in Marek's ark.

He offered me a few sachets of "peace tea" and assured me that, should I be reporting from Rome next year, he plans to be there and I would be very welcome to take tea in his ark.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 20 August, 2005 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.