 | |
| Date | July 23, 2002- July 28, 2002 |
|---|---|
| Location | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Type | Youth festival |
| Theme | You are the salt of the earth ... you are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:13-14) |
| Organised by | Catholic Church |
| Participants | Pope John Paul II |
| Previous | 2000 Rome |
| Next | 2005 Cologne |
| Website | https://www.vatican.va/gmg/documents/gmg_toronto2002_sp.html |
The 17th World Youth Day 2002 (French: Journées mondiales de la jeunesse 2002) was a Catholic youth festival held July 23 to 28, 2002, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. World Youth Day is a celebration of faith begun by Pope John Paul II held on an international level every two to three years, and WYD2002 was the 10th such event. Although WYD is designed for Catholics, it attracts sizable numbers of youths from other faiths and denominations and was presented as a multi-faith celebration of young people from all over the world.
As the event is ultimately an expression of faith, and a critical expression of faith is through service to others, World Youth Day 2002 had the support of some 25,000 volunteers; and some 100,000 pilgrims themselves spent three hours each on one of 750 service projects.
The groundswell of Catholic spirituality following World Youth Day 2002 in Canada led to the establishment of Canada's first national Catholic television network, Salt + Light Television. Thomas Rosica, who was the National Director of WYD2002, is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of this new television station. He later resigned due to plagiarism allegations.[1]
For the third time (after Buenos Aires 1987 and Denver 1993) the World Youth Day was celebrated in the Americas.[2]
- ^ Dougherty, M. V.; Hochschild, Joshua P. (15 April 2019). "Tracking Father Rosica's (Very) Long History of Plagiarism". National Post. Archived from the original on 28 February 2022. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
- ^ "VIDEO: ¡La JMJ vuelve a América! El Papa Francisco hizo anuncio oficial". Retrieved 21 February 2018.