[b]The Papal Invasion of Australia[/b]


The visitors — more than 125,000 from overseas and 100,000 from around Australia — are in Sydney for World Youth Day, a week-long celebration of Catholic faith that will culminate July 21 in a Mass on the city's Randwick Racecourse. On Monday, while Pope Benedict XVI recovered from jet lag in a rural retreat, throngs chanted hymns and took turns carrying a 12-foot (3.8-m) wooden cross through the city's streets. In St Mary's Cathedral, people lit candles and knelt to pray before a casket holding the remains of Italian youth worker Pier Giorgio Frassati, which had been shipped to Australia for the occasion.

In a small convent chapel on the other side of Sydney Harbour, they did the same at the tomb of 19th-century Australian nun Mary McKillop. Both are patrons of World Youth Day and, their supporters hope, will soon be declared saints by the Church. Out in the bright blue, southern hemisphere winter ..

read more: www.time.com

_________________
SI Moderator - Greg Gordon