More Than Registered

One World Youth Day [WYD] pattern appears set: more pilgrims flock to the site of a WYD than the number of those who officially register. The number increases when other-than-youth-participants are counted. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office,

reported the number of pilgrims as between 1 million and 1.5 million. [Yago de la Cierva, the director of WYD organization.] added, however, that WYD success isn't measured in the number of participants. He also clarified that the number registered is around 430,000, with another 30,000 volunteers and hundreds of bishops. [Source: Zenit.org, 19 Aug 2011.]

Using the list of registered young pilgrims the official WYD 2011 website posted an interactive map of pilgrims by countries and their respective numbers. No mistake: WYD is a world event.

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Wiki-image by Raúl Hernández González of official logo is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Gerneric license.