We shook hands with a German soldier and conversed with Russian media. We offered the kiss of peace to Italians, danced our praises with Spaniards and hugged a Venezuelan of few English words. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var new_slot_sizes… Read More
It looked more like a rock concert, but some of the 350 pilgrims from Maine sat quietly Saturday night, clustered on ground covers and in collapsible chairs, the flames of their white candles flickering in the warm breeze. Others collapsed on sleeping bags. googletag.cmd.push(function ()… Read More
TORONTO – The currency of World Youth Day 2002 was not Canada’s colorful bills sporting pictures of prime ministers, the queen and the common loon. More valuable than money were the pins, buttons, stickers, tattoos, rosaries and T-shirts the 300,000 pilgrims constantly traded. By the… Read More
TORONTO – Bishop Joseph J. Gerry left behind the sex abuse scandal that has dominated the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland for the past six months to celebrate Mass on Saturday morning at a hotel with more than 200 young people and their adult leaders who traveled to… Read More
Everywhere she went in Toronto, Victoria Perez Rubio, 25, kept running into people she met at World Youth Day in Paris two years ago. A native of Cadiz, Spain, she has spent the past few months visiting friends in Bar Harbor. She will head home… Read More
Marie Lint of Old Town was right up front. Pressed against 4-foot-high portable fencing, she watched as Pope John Paul II cruised by on his way to an open-air Mass at a huge stage in Toronto, where more than 200,000 young people from 170 nations… Read More
TORONTO – There they were, sitting or standing under the trees in Coronation Park along Lake Ontario, speaking quietly with a solitary person, then offering prayers and a blessing. Priests from 170 nations heard confession in the most informal of circumstances during this week’s World… Read More
Unlike his fellow pilgrims, Adam Metivier of Old Town is sleeping late at World Youth Day. The 15-year-old gets up at 5:30 a.m. six days a week to deliver the Bangor Daily News. In Toronto, he’s been able to sleep until 7 a.m. googletag.cmd.push(function ()… Read More
TORONTO – Nikki Ouellette of Van Buren thought twice about coming to World Youth Day. She was turning 16 this week and wasn’t sure that being amid hundreds of thousands of strangers in a foreign city was how she wanted to celebrate. googletag.cmd.push(function () {… Read More
TORONTO – Officially, the top pilgrim traveling from Maine to Canada for World Youth Day 2002 with Pope John Paul II is the Rev. Robert Vaillancourt, but his fellow pilgrims just call him Father Bob. The pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Madawaska… Read More
ST. AGATHA – Just two days before his group leaves for a weeklong jaunt to Toronto for the biennial World Youth Conference, 18-year-old Brandon Berce was getting excited Friday about the prospect of seeing and hearing Pope John Paul II. The young man will join… Read More