Singing and storytelling emits an energy few would associate with the Catholic Church
RIDING THE metro in Madrid alongside 150 young Irish pilgrims is an experience more like going to a big international sporting event than being en route to Mass.
The constant singing, shouting and storytelling emits an energy that few at home would associate with the Catholic Church, or with pilgrimages.
This is World Youth Day, a week-long Catholic festival attracting hundreds of thousands of young visitors from every continent to the Spanish capital.
“It’s a brilliant atmosphere,” said Aisling Branagan (18) from Leixlip in Co Kildare. “You are going through the metro and the different countries are singing their little chants and stuff.”
After growing up with a church rocked by endless scandals, many of the young Irish in Madrid this week have enjoyed the pilgrimage environment where their faith is celebrated.
“In school when you had religious modules or whatever, it could get really heated, people could get overly passionate about things and it could get a little awkward,” said Aisling.
The view was echoed by Isabelle Veale (18), from Bray in Co Wicklow. “People that don’t believe in God, they can get really aggressive at you. Here everybody is on the same wavelength or there about.”
"We're not all overly religious, saying the Hail Maryevery 10 minutes or anything, we just go to Mass," she added.
Obviously, the young people who have journeyed to Madrid have a deeper level of faith than most their age, which is evident during the religious services in which they play a large role, singing and performing readings.
When asked about the role his faith in the church’s teachings plays in his life, Eoin Caulfield (19), from Howth in Dublin, said it was “very important”. “I’ve come here to kind of renew my faith – coming to Mass and catechisms here every morning, it’s great,” he said.
Hundreds of sites around the city play host to morning prayers, catechisms and Masses every day and in a variety of languages.
The catechisms involve a talk from a bishop on a given topic followed by a questions and answers section where the pilgrims can quiz the bishop on matters troubling them.
The youthful nature of the audience has created different discussions to what might be expected elsewhere.
One debate that the group from the Dublin archdiocese had with a visiting bishop was, “why Jesus had not chosen to descend to earth today”. The advances in social media such as Facebook would allow him to spread a message far quicker than 2,000 years ago, it was argued.
“We ended that with saying, Jesus came down here to help us. He wasn’t interested in being famous he just wanted to save us from our sins,” said Eoin.
Although the streets are lined with flags celebrating World Youth Day, the welcome to pilgrims has not been universal. Spanish secularists have been especially vocal in their opposition to the perceived cost of hosting a religious festival.
“Individual people just make little comments or give dirty looks. They can see the tags and T-shirts and they know why we are here,” said Isabelle.
She had encountered gay rights activists who confronted her asking: “The pope is not a friend of the gays, why are you here?” “The experiences have been a bit shocking,” she said.
Conor Gannon, from Glasnevin in Dublin, emerged from a central metro station on Wednesday just as protesters were clashing with police.
“It was quite terrifying really to see such a concentration of hatred. As I came out there was a large congregation of anti-Catholic protesters who were shouting at us – there was an awful lot of anger there,” he said.