world youth day

			
16 Jul 2008

			
Waiting for God

			
By The Pilgrim

						

																											

						
Queues and Confusion: Day One on the Sydney Pilgrim Trail with newmatilda.com's registered World Youth Day correspondent

			"Smooth" was the judgment of the six o'clock news bulletins on Tuesday night as the first day of World Youth Day celebrations concluded with George Pell's opening mass. The same could not be said for the beginning of the day with eager volunteers locked out of the call centre and headquarters for event registration at Albion Street church. The volunteers were told to arrive at 7:00 am but were forced to wait for two hours before late management and supervisors arrived to open the centre at 9:00 am.


Tempers were still high when newmatilda.com's World Youth Day Pilgrim arrived at 3:30pm to complete his registration. One volunteer remonstrated with a supervisor, "This can't happen again! We wasted time!"




Time was important to German Pilgrim "Kohler", who, having just stepped off a plane, didn't know that she required registration to attend WYD events. "I had no idea", she said. "I only hope I have enough time to get to [evening] mass."




Unfortunately for the 20-something strong work force at the call centre, Kohler was not the only bewildered pilgrim. Scores of pilgrims have arrived in Australia without any idea about the complicated and costly registration service. Operator "Joe" let off steam as we both struggled with my registration. "I can't imagine how a grandma, maybe without the internet, would be able to do this. Heaps of people have called up having just arrived, with no idea - some were even still looking for accommodation."




The confusion was made even clearer in the conversation of another call operator with a disabled pilgrim who had paid the $335 for full week registration. She explained "Sorry, we've never said we would be able to send it [the pass] to you." She then informed the pilgrim that they would have to go - or find someone else to go - to Grafton Street to collect their pass and backpack before they could attend any events.




While Kohler made it to evening mass, it's unknown how many missed the event, or how many pilgrims still roam the streets unregistered.




The Pilgrim is newmatilda.com's World Youth Day correspondent. Stay tuned for daily updates.


						

	
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					ayladarcy 17/07/08 12:51PM

					

						
I’m disappointed that NM got on the world youth day bandwagon. It shits me that something so particular to a narrow community - the Catholic one - is considered news. Why do I care what a bunch of Catholic young people do, think, say? Why does being Catholic and playing with each other in Sydney make their experiences news?


It just gives the Catholic community more fuel for believing their religion reflects some sort of majority view, that Western culture is based on Catholic values and those values are still relevant in a mass way to Western cultures, and if despite my wishing otherwise they still are relevant, than it indicates this isn’t likely to change anytime soon. How depressing.


It’s the media who seems to be making Catholicism relevant and I hoped NM wasn’t one of those media. Why does the media agree with the Catholics about their own importance?