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Feature News | Thursday, September 20, 2018

‘Dreamers’ headed for World Youth Day

Archdiocesan pilgrims, numbering around 120, range from teens to young in spirit

Members of St. Joseph Parish's Youth on Fire pray during adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the Aug. 22 prayer vigil at St. John Vianney College Seminary.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Members of St. Joseph Parish's Youth on Fire pray during adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the Aug. 22 prayer vigil at St. John Vianney College Seminary.

MIAMI | Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa of Panama says the term “young people” does not apply only to those under a certain age.

Rather, he said during a Mass at St. John Vianney Seminary Aug. 22, “a young person is a dreamer. And for that reason, World Youth Day is for all those who are dreamers.”

It makes sense, then, that among the 120 or so going to World Youth Day in Panama from the Archdiocese of Miami are both the young and not so young.

Miami Dade College student Isabel Rennella, 19, a veteran of WYD in Poland in 2016, will be going with her mother, Paulina Rennella, who will be making her first WYD pilgrimage.

Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa of Panama leads a reflection for the young people in attendance at the prayer service Aug. 22 at St. John Vianney College Seminary.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa of Panama leads a reflection for the young people in attendance at the prayer service Aug. 22 at St. John Vianney College Seminary.

St. Ann Mission’s Pablo Rodriguez, 30, will be leading a group of seven from the parish and making his fourth WYD pilgrimage.

First-timers Laura Angel, 36, and Judith Montalvan, 26, represent half of the four-member contingent from Youth on Fire, the young adult group from St. Joseph Church, Miami Beach.  

They will be joined by high school students from Msgr. Edward Pace in Miami Gardens and Belen Jesuit Prep in Miami.

The Pace group consists of three students, two teachers and an alumnus, Father Bryan Garcia, now administrator of St. Bernadette Parish in Hollywood. Father Garcia is a veteran of two World Youth Days: Australia in 2011 as a seminarian, and Poland in 2016 as a priest. He will be the official chaplain for the archdiocesan pilgrims.

Belen’s group of 12 will be led by Jesuit Father Wilfredo García-Tuñón, the school’s president.

The largest archdiocesan group is from Blessed Trinity in Miami Springs, about 30 people led by their pastor, Father José Alfaro. Groups are also going from St. Katharine Drexel in Weston and Little Flower in Coral Gables.

Little Flower’s religious education director, Jorge Santibañez, led a group to Poland with his wife, Angelica. This time, they might break a record for youngest attendee at WYD, as they will be taking their daughter, Alexandra, born this April.

“Yes, that is our plan,” Santibañez said. “Baby Lexi has her passport ready to go. She’ll be nine months at departure time.”

Father Elvis Gonzalez, archdiocesan vocations director, will be traveling with a group of four seminarians. Msgr. Chanel Jeanty, archdiocesan chancellor and pastor of St. James in North Miami, will be going, and hopes to take several young people from the parish with him. Also planning to go is Father James McCreanor, who retired this July as pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Homestead.

Three Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary also will be going as chaperones for the young adult group.

According to Rosemarie Banich, archdiocesan director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, Miami’s will be one of the largest groups from the U.S. at WYD Panama. The archdiocese offered two pilgrimage options: an eight-day trip, Jan. 21-28, and a five-day trip, Jan. 24-28.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski will accompany the group, as he did in Poland, and so will Auxiliary Bishops Peter Baldacchino and Enrique Delgado.

Panama is expecting about 500,000 people at World Youth Day. That’s a lot fewer than the numbers — 2.4 million and 3.7 million, respectively — that went to Poland 2016 and Brazil 2013.

“I think the biggest issue is time of the year, for kids and college students,” Banich said, as classes are in full swing both in Europe and North America. Normally, World Youth Day takes place in the summer, but Panama’s archbishop said the dates were selected to avoid the country’s rainy season.

For those going, though, missing classes or work pales in comparison to attending what is perhaps the world’s greatest youth party.

“I’m missing class and work,” said Youth on Fire’s Montalvan. “I don’t mind.”

“We are super excited,” said Angel, her fellow Youth on Fire pilgrim. “We’ve always wanted to be with the young people from all over the world and Pope Francis.”

“I’m looking for all the new experiences that we’re going to have,” said Pace senior Nathan Bonet. “I’m excited to meet other youth from around the world.”

But perhaps no one is more excited about this World Youth Day than the host, Archbishop Ulloa, who happily swayed to the music and posed for selfies during the prayer vigil Aug. 22 at St. John Vianney Seminary.

“Young people,” he exhorted, “God is waiting for something from each one of us. He is inviting us to dream.”

Freelancer Cristina Cabrera Jarro contributed to his report.

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