Pray Tell

Local and national media are running lots of stories, features and profiles surrounding the upcoming World Youth Day that's happening here in Toronto. Catholic pilgrims are flocking into the city. The highlight of the event will be a visit by the pope. Seems like a lot of people will travel a long way to see an old man fall asleep in a chair.

When I was downtown Monday night I saw a group of nuns doing some sight-seeing outside the Eaton's Centre. Whatever order they belonged to, they wore grey habits, each with a six-to-eight-inch wooden crucifix strapped to their left hip, tucked inside the plain rope sash, much like a sword. In fact, worn in such a fashion, they looked as much like swords as objects of faith. I guess it's all about tradition.

But what gets me about World Youth Day is this: if it's meant as a celebration for Catholic youth, and, let's be honest, as a way to draw/keep young people in the Catholic church, the hope being that they will forge the basis for the church's future survival, and as many of the young participants say that it's important for them to be proud of being Catholics, why isn't the event called by the more proper title of "World Catholic Youth Day"? After all, they're not celebrating the youth of the world, of which I'm sure only a very tiny percentage are actively Catholic; they're celebrating young Catholics.

Why not call it what it is? Or is that bad marketing?