WHAT THE IPHONE IS DOING TO WORLD YOUTH DAY

The 2011 World Youth Day will be much like its precedents -- "a party that the Holy Father convokes" -- but the role that networking will play in the event is sure to give it a special flair, according to its director of communications.

Santiago de la Cierva, founder and director of the "Rome Reports" TV agency and a professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, was asked by the host of '11 Youth Day, Madrid's archbishop, Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela, to be the director of communications.

De la Cierva said the first thing that came to his mind in response was, "Is there no one else?" But, kidding aside, the communications professor admitted these kinds of opportunities are like trains that pass by: "Someone tells you, 'get on board,' and with a little faith, one can realize that even though it makes your life more complicated, though there are obviously no free evenings, no weekends or vacations … deep down you realize that it's worth it."

De la Cierva says leading communication for World Youth Day will be "a fantastic adventure."

"My hair is going to go gray," he declared, "but it will be worth it because this is very much in the heart of the Church and the youth do not have many opportunities to say 'The Church is mine.'"

ZENIT spoke with de la Cierva about the challenges of World Youth Day communication and what can be expected of the Pope when it comes to reaching out to youth with their own style of communication.

ZENIT: What will be special about Madrid 2011, compared to previous World Youth Days?

De la Cierva: Madrid 2011 will have nothing new compared to the other events, except the location, the historical moment, the hopes to do very well, everything that comes with having it in a country like Spain that has 2,000 years of Christianity and where the very stones ooze the faith, ooze a centuries-old tradition. This is what will make of Madrid 2011 a very special World Youth Day.

Taking into account that we are in Europe, at the end of Europe, but Europe nonetheless, we calculate that more than a million people will come. We will probably try to reach what happened here in Rome in the year 2000, but that doesn't depend on us.

I think the particularity of the World Youth Day in Madrid is going to be precisely that it takes place in a country that has always been faithful to the Catholic Church. It is a country that has transmitted the faith to many continents; the majority of the Catholics of the whole world speak Spanish precisely because they have been evangelized by Spaniards, and we would like to recover this missionary spirit. Sometimes missionaries are thought of as older people who went to preach to foreign lands, but no, the missionaries were under 25. We would like to recover this spirit and present it to the youth of today.

Another characteristic of the Madrid World Youth Day will be networks. For the first time, we are going to have a World Youth Day in which really the fundamental means of communication will be the Internet, the social networks, not only as information but also as communication, to create communities. In Sydney, this already began, but I think this is going to be the explosion. Explosion as well of new technologies. In 2011, probably almost everyone who comes will have new generation cell phones. It will be very easy to be in contact, to receive information, take advantage of the phone, the terminals, to receive the translations of the Holy Father's words, the organizational messages, etc.



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