7,000 mile Journey to World Youth Day

August 12, 2011: Five hundred young people from Taiwan are traveling over 7,000 miles in seven days just to see Pope Benedict XVI in Madrid next week – and they all say it’s worth it. Taiwan--the only part of China that didn’t fall under communist rule following the Chinese civil war of 1946-50, has a population of 23 million, of which only two percent are Catholic.
“It’s important to be there because there are not many Catholics in Taiwan and so we thought it would be good for our young people to gain a broader vision of the whole Catholic Church,” group leader Angela Ng told Catholic News Agency.
CNA met up with a group of 30 young Taiwanese pilgrims in St. Peter’s Basilica. Italy, however, is just the latest stop for the group on a journey that has taken them from Taiwan to Hong Kong to Germany to Rome and finally to Madrid. “I’m going to Madrid because I’m looking for the truth and I’m looking for myself, and I think I’ll find that at World Youth Day”, said Christina Chen, one of the young pilgrims.
The 500 pilgrims from Taiwan will be joined next week in Madrid by hundreds of thousands of their fellow young Catholics.