Church in the World

Don’t sit on the fence, Pell tells World Youth Day pilgrims

Cardinal George Pell told World Youth Day (WYD) pilgrims this week that they should not spend their lives "sitting on the fence" because only firm commitments bring fulfilment. He was giving the homily at the opening two-and-a-quarter hour Mass at Barangaroo on Tuesday, attended by some 150,000 pilgrims, where he was principal celebrant.

The six-day festival of Catholic youth opened two days after Pope Benedict XVI arrived for his first Australian visit - a visit that began with a three-day private stay at an Opus Dei-operated retreat house on the outskirts of Sydney. The 81-year-old Pope was due to start his public programme on Thursday with a meeting with the pilgrims at Barangaroo, and is due to end it with a Mass at Randwick racecourse tomorrow.

The opening Mass was held on a warm, sunny afternoon despite its being Australia's coldest season. In his homily Cardinal Pell urged pilgrims to follow Christ whatever the cost. "Don't spend your life sitting on the fence, keeping your options open, because only commitments bring fulfilment," he said. "Happiness comes from meeting our obligations, doing our duty, especially in small matters and regularly, so we can rise to meet the harder challenges. Many have found their life's calling at World Youth Days." The president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, told the vast congregation at the end of Mass: "Dear young people, you have brought spring to Australia's winter and you have brought springtime to the Church."

Cardinal Pell wore the episcopal ring and pectoral cross of the English Benedictine John Bede Polding, the first bishop in Australia and his first predecessor as Archbishop of Sydney; he used the chalice of William Ullathorne, a pioneer priest in Sydney in the early nineteenth century who became the first Archbishop of Birmingham; and after a series of greetings to pilgrims in German, Spanish, French and Italian, Cardinal Pell welcomed "the Irish and English pilgrims, whose ancestors first planted the faith on this continent". Torres Strait Islanders, who live between Australia and Papua New Guinea, performed a dance to commemorate the 1871 arrival from the London Missionary Society of the Bible in their islands.

Shortly before the Mass and after a welcome by indigenous Australians, Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd - a convert from Catholicism to Anglicanism - told the pilgrims they were "so much the light of the world at a time when the world has so much darkness". "Some say there is no place for faith in the twenty-first century. I say they are wrong. Some say that faith is the enemy of reason. I say, also, they are wrong because faith and reason are great partners in our human history and in our human future." The Mass was followed by a Christian rock concert and fireworks.

Earlier in the day the Federal Court upheld a challenge to special WYD laws that carried fines for people caught annoying pilgrims. The court ruled that regulations that would have prevented members of the "NoToPope Coalition" from handing out leaflets and other items were invalid and "should not be interpreted as conferring powers that are repugnant to fundamental rights and freedoms at common law in the absence of clear authority from Parliament". The judges noted that the students who brought the action planned to hand out condoms and leaflets during the Pilgrim Walk.

Cardinal Pell said he was a "climate change sceptic" at a news conference on Monday and urged Australia and other Western countries to increase the size of their families