Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State and distinguished guest at the 125th Supreme Knights Convention in Nashville, Tennessee held a press conference on Wednesday, August 8th, where he spoke openly on several important issues facing the Church. I had the opportunity to be present at the press conference along with more than a ...read more

As many of you have probably noticed by the coverage on Salt + Light Television, the Knights of Columbus 125th Supreme Convention is well underway in Nashville, Tennessee. One of the highlights on Tuesday was the Opening Mass with the Holy See’s Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. In his homily, Cardinal Bertone praised Father ...read more

It’s hard to believe it’s August already, but many folks in Halifax are greeting the new month with great anticipation, as this weekend marks the Steubenville Atlantic conference. What’s the Steubenville Atlantic conference? Let me cut and paste from the official website: Steubenville Atlantic is a high school youth conference attended by over 1200 young ...read more

A most fearsome alarm clock, the cold rain simultaneously woke hundreds of thousands of pilgrims camping at Downsview Park. You can imagine the sight of groggy pilgrims hurriedly hunting for the rain gear they forgot to bring. And, as biology dictates, the second item on the morning itinerary was the search for a bathroom. As ...read more

There’s something about the music of WYD2002 that really transports me back to that week. Events such as the Welcoming Ceremony, the Way of the Cross, the Vigil and the Closing Mass, would not have been the same, I believe, had it not been for the music. Not that the music is solely responsible for ...read more

Days before World Youth Day 2002’s Way of the Cross, the event’s director, Father Robert Gendreau, was concerned that there was not a lot of media interest in this grand-scale Stations of the Cross. Stretching along one of Toronto’s busiest avenues with hundreds of people involved, and six months in the making, this was no ...read more

Retrospect. Hindsight. Looking back. We’re often asked how we might redo history, knowing what we know now. What would I change about the summer of 2002? Nothing. World Youth Day 2002 provided me with one my first jobs… I was working in the Program Department helping to organize the volunteers and logistics of festival stages ...read more

The other day I decided to unearth the red and beige bag that lays at the bottom of my closet. The occasion was the fifth anniversary of Toronto’s World Youth Day. The bag: the official Toronto WYD backpack. The contents: worn pamphlets, tattered maps, and torn flyers I enthusiastically collected between July 23rd and July ...read more

This week, July 23rd to July 28th, marks the 5th anniversary of Toronto’s World Youth Day. Salt + Light Television is marking the occasion with a whole slate of special programming. Click HERE to see what we have scheduled. Throughout this week we’ll also be posting on the blog some of the staff’s experiences at ...read more

I signed up for WYD 02 rather late in the game. Wouldn’t it be equivalent watching the coverage from afar? And, frankly, due to some evangelical protestant leanings I held at the time, all the attention on the Pope made me uncomfortable. Still, realizing the opportunity may only come once, I squeezed into the lone ...read more