..after a domestic sort of day and tea with Mother, I settled with some sewing and the beautiful DVDs of World Youth Day 08 given to me in Sydney during my recent trip. All the time in Australia I asked people about WYD: was it rated a success, were numbers up to expectations, what sorts of people came, did it all have any lasting effect? Media coverage in Britain was of course poor ('no sex, no story', so as they couldn't find lots of young people denouncing the Church's teachings on that subject, they contented themselves with a few references to clerical abuse and generally ignored the whole thing). And there's only so much you can get from the Internet. The Sydney diocese has produced books, DVDs, etc that bring the thing alive.
Filing away some mementoes from my trip brought a rush of pictures across my mind: a lovely evening at Melbourne's Catholic Central bookshop, next to St Francis Church - and a memory of dropping into that church, packed for a Saturday evening Mass...an afternoon cookery session making honey-toffee apples for St Bartholomew's Day at the Sydney diocesan adult Education Centre, lots of fun and laughter with young mums...a crowded evening session at the Centre with a wonderful atmosphere and sense of friendship... in Melbourne, chatting to Dr Tracey Rowland of the John Paul II Institute , a longstanding friend... a lecture at the Caroline Chisholm Library...dinner with Bishop Peter Elliott, who has known Jamie and me for over 30 years...
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