Aboriginal youth join in welcoming the world

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Aboriginal Catholic youth from across Canada will be joining with thousands of other young Canadians as they welcome the world to Toronto for a celebration of their Catholic faith.

From July 22 to 28, the city will play host to World Youth Day 2002, with more than 350,000 registered participants from 150-plus countries expected to take part.

This, the 17th annual World Youth Day (WYD) celebration, marks the first time the event has been held in Canada, and only the second time it has been held in North America. The first WYD in North America was held in Denver in 1993.

Leading up to WYD celebrations in Toronto is a four-day event called Days in the Dioceses, during which participants from other countries will travel to various communities across Canada to stay with local families, and take part in events and activities at local Catholic churches.

Activities planned for WYD 2002 include an evening vigil with the Pope on July 27, and a Papal Mass on July 28. Although other events are restricted to registered participants, the Papal Mass will be open to the public.

Also planned are a youth festival, a dramatic presentation of the Way of the Cross, prayer events, seminars, gatherings, and art and cultural exhibits.

Sister Eva Solomon is co-ordinator of Aboriginal affairs for WYD 2002.

Sister Eva, who is Ojibway, is working to ensure Aboriginal youth from Canada and abroad feel welcome.

Although many of the plans she is working on for WYD have yet to be finalized, there are a number of things she is hoping to be able to set up. One is an Aboriginal village at Exhibition Place, one of three major venues across the city that will be hosting WYD activities.

"And in that village we may have from one area the kind of tipi or living house that they traditionally lived in. We might have a sacred fire. And a sweat lodge that is constructed for teaching, and so half of it will be open and the other half closed so people can see what it would look like, and then somebody would also be teaching about it. And drum making, or reskinning a large ceremonial drum. And teachings from the medicine wheel and making medicine wheels. And I'm not sure what else. Perhaps an Innu winter camp, or just a sense of how they live in their winter tents out on the land," Sister Eva said.

She is also looking into the possibility of having some Native people on site recreating what life was like at the time of first contact.

The Aboriginal village is being organized as a way of sharing aspects of Aboriginal cultures from across Canada with visitors from around the world, Sister Eva explained.

"To let other peoples of the world know some of the traditions of our past, and some that we continue to carry on, like the sacred fire or the sweat lodge."

Sister Eva is also working to organize a number of workshops, or dialogues, dealing with issues of concern to Aboriginal people.

"My responsibility is for Aboriginal people all over the world, not just Canadian Aboriginal. So one of our goals or one of our dialogues has to do with healing and reconciliation.

"In that dialogue, we will have hopefully some of the Aboriginal people from South Africa, from Australia and from Canada, and who knows where else. But those three for sure in the dialogue. And because each of them have something to offer one another to say this is how we found healing, and this was helpful for us and so on," she said.

"So, for example, I think in South Africa they had a peace and reconciliation commission, which Desmond Tutu worked with. And so that's another area. Another is on some reflections on various documents like Rediscovering, Recognizing and Celebrating Aboriginal Spiritual Tradition."

That document, a pastoral message to Canadian Native people issued by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops' Episcopal Commission for the Evangelization of Peoples in 1999, deals with the church's acceptance of Native spirituality. It invites Native people to continue woking to find ways to mesh that spirituality with the Catholic faith.

Sister Eva also hopes to have some Elders taking part in the WYD events, "just being available in the same sense as they would be available at any traditional gathering."

Some Aboriginal entertainers are also scheduled to perform, and an Aboriginal art display is also among the possible features being considered.

Yet another project Sister Eva is hoping to have in place is a uniquely Aboriginal take on the shuttle bus.

"We hope to have some of the big northern canoes . . . paddling them up the Humber River, which was the actual route of some of the early missionaries. And they will bring them up to a certain subway stop and let them off, and then pick up people from there and bring them back down to the exhibition grounds by the Humber River too. So its easy to get back and forth."

Although she doesn't have specific numbers, Sister Eva said she knows of groups of Aboriginal youth from all over the country who are planning to attend WYD in Toronto.

"I've been told that in some places, the Aboriginal numbers are higher than the non-Aboriginal. "

She thinks there are a number of reasons why WYD is drawing so many Aboriginal youth.

"I think first of all that it's here at home, and some of them may have had some experience when the Pope was in Midland or in Fort Simpson or in other areas of Canada. And the other is that the Aboriginal people really do have a sense of pilgrimage, especially from the north and the east. For years they've been going to Lac Ste. Anne. And they will walk and drive all the way from Yellowknife or wherever, hundreds of kilometres to get there. And the same in the east coast, going to Chapel Island and St. Anne de Beaupre and those shrines. Then in Ontario its Martyr's Shrine. It's just a part of what has been in a sense their journey. And they understand that kind of journey, I guess. And they are closer to the spirituality of that kind of journey."

Sister Eva said se saw the experience of WYC as more of an opportunity to give than to get.

"I know they can gain a lot in terms of being enriched by the dialogue with other cultures. But more so, I feel it's what they can give as the Aboriginal people of this land, to welcome the rest of the world. This is our home, and we are the very first people in this land. So we want to make our welcome as wonderful as it would be if we were bringing the king or the queen to the village."

The cost of registration for the entire WYD gathering, including meals and simple accommodations is $240 per person. The same package without the meal plan is $190. To register for just the weekend of July 27 and 28 including the vigil and mass with the Pope, is $100 with meals, and $60 without meals.

The registration deadline is June 15. Late registrations will be accepted, although latecomers might have to make their own arrangements for accommodations and may not be able to take advantage of the meal plan.

For more information call the WYD info line at 416-913-2080, or visit the Web site at http://www.wyd2002.org.