The WYD Cross Brings Hope to Mexico

While Mexico digs into the rubble and weeps over those who died a few days ago in the tragic earthquake, the Pilgrimage of the World Youth Day symbols continues. It is significant that at a time of such great hardship, a hope-filled journey of youth is leaving its mark in the very same places of Central America that have just been struck by death and destruction.

Setting out from the Guadalupe basilica at the end of August, young people brought the WYD symbols—the Holy Year Cross and the Icon of the Virgin Salus Populi Romani—to Mexico’s dioceses, passing through Durango, Hermosillo, and Monterrey.

The original program also indicated that the pilgrimage should stop in some cities that were heavily affected by the earthquake on 19 September, including Acapulco, Oaxaca, Puebla (the epicenter), but also the regions of Chiapas and Yucatan.

The story of the Jubilee Cross, also called WDY Cross, began thirty years ago when, during the 1984 Holy Year of Redemption, Pope John Paul II decided to place a large wooden cross, almost 4 meters high, in Saint Peter’s Basilica, where everyone could see it. At the end of that Holy Year, after closing the Holy Door, the Pope entrusted the cross to the young, who have since taken it around the world.