CNS STORY: Priest: World Youth Day cross a sign of hope for South African youths

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CNS Story:

SAFRICA-WYD Jan-26-2007 (500 words) With photos. xxxi

Priest: World Youth Day cross a sign of hope for South African youths

By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- The World Youth Day cross is a sign of hope for the many young people devastated by AIDS in the South African province of Eastern Cape, said a Catholic youth chaplain.

The cross was recently carried through the largely rural province which has high unemployment, poverty and inadequate education in a country where more than 18 percent of adults are HIV positive, said Father Matthias Nsamba, the youth chaplain of the Aliwal North Diocese.

Father Nsamba told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview Jan. 21 that few job opportunities for young people exist in Eastern Cape, which he called "a province of death, disaster and despair."

The young people "go to big cities to look for jobs but struggle to find work without proper education and training, and many turn to prostitution, drugs and crime," Father Nsamba said.

However, he said, "the cross is a sign of hope."

Nearly 1,000 young people turned out for the Jan. 7 event at a farm near Queenstown in Eastern Cape to welcome the World Youth Day cross and icon of Mary which are being taken around the world before the 2008 World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia.

Four bishops led a vigil to receive the cross from young people who had traveled by bus from Cape Town to hand over the cross.

Paulos Mbovu, an adult volunteer in Aliwal North's diocesan youth council, sang loud welcoming praises in Xhosa when the cross arrived, Father Nsamba said.

A tradition to have a praise singer at major celebrations in South Africa, "the singer interprets the feeling of the people at the ceremony, representing them and speaking on their behalf," Father Nsamba said.

Mbovu "praised the cross, praised the depth of faith in the province and its young people's spirit of working together, and he emphasized that the cross has come to bring us hope," said Father Nsamba.

The South African theme for the World Youth Day cross and the icon, given by Pope John Paul II to the youths of the world, is: "Christ Comes to Heal Our Land and Its People: Prevent HIV/AIDS by Taking Ownership of Your Life in Christ the Healer."

"Each bishop at the ceremony sent his own young people home with their own crosses that they will take with them into hospitals and homes where people are dying of AIDS," Father Nsamba said.

Before reaching Australia, the cross has been carried through several African countries as a sign of solidarity with the suffering populations of the continent. Then it will be taken on a pilgrimage through Oceania, arriving in Sydney in July 2008.

More than 100 youth leaders from five dioceses attended a church-run training workshop before attending the event. They were trained in leadership and taught about AIDS, and have helped to "form structures in their dioceses that will support a sustainable youth ministry," Father Nsamba said.

END

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