A Journey of Faith
The Archdiocese of Boston (Massachusetts, USA) sent over 200 young people with the archdiocesan Office for Youth Ministry to World Youth Day in Paris in August 1997. Included in the group were teens, volunteer and professional youth ministers, young adults, priests, and His Eminence Bernard Cardinal Law.

I was one of those pilgrims. My name is Domenico Bettinelli, Jr. and I'm a 29-year-old reporter for Catholic World News. My brother John was the coordinator for the pilgrimage and he asked me to come along and help out. It just so happened that his wife, Patty, would have received a free trip to Paris, but she was then eight months pregnant and couldn't go, so I stepped in. It was the chance of a lifetime and a gift from God.

So much about World Youth Day wasn't at all like I expected and other parts were just what I thought it could be. Here I offer you a pictorial record of my journey. I've also include an article I wrote for Catholic World Report magazine about World Youth Day in general. You'll also find the text of Pope John Paul's speeches he gave that week.

An Experience of a Lifetime World Youth Day is both a cultural experience and a religious experience. Not only did we journey to a foreign land with a different language and new customs, we also met other young people from almost every nation on Earth and came away with a new perspective on ourselves as well as our Catholic brothers and sisters. As part of that cultural experience, we were able to eat different foods (although I never want to see another "jambon et fromage au baguette"), visit museums and beautiful old churches, and try to get by in a language some of us barely knew and others knew not at all.	La Tour Eiffel at night
The glass pyramid at the Louvre museum	However, the main point of the trip was the religious experience of coming together with a million other young Catholics from around the world as well as hundreds of bishops and thousands of priests, and of course, Pope John Paul II, for one purpose -- to worship Jesus Christ and to be enlivened and inspired to bring the light of Christ with us from Paris to every corner of the globe. Within the following pages, I will try to relate the story of World Youth Day 97 in the only way I can -- by telling the story of a group of pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Boston who crossed an ocean to meet our shepherd. Day One

Copyright ©1998 Domenico Bettinelli, Jr. All Rights Reserved. Comments to dom@bettnet.com Revised January 18, 1998. URL is: http://www.bettnet.com/wyd/index.html In full fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church