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Toronto World Youth Day Media Miracle

Astonishingly positive media coverage during the event

LIFESITE SPECIAL REPORT

LIFESITE, August 2, 2002 (LSN.ca) - It has been five days since the world's #1 defender of life and family has left Toronto. Canadians are still marveling that Pope John Paul II and the World Youth Day (WYD) participants received such massive and mostly very positive media coverage during the week long event.

The Canadian electronic and print media are usually hostile or at best uninterested towards any movement espousing traditional religious or moral principles – especially the moral principles which JPII consistently promotes. And yet, with far fewer exceptions than anyone could have expected, they were falling all over themselves to provide extensive and fair, if not exuberant coverage of WYD. Over 3800 media correspondents were registered for the event.

The Toronto miracle should give great hope to life and family advocates, of any denomination, that there is a still a strong openness and hunger for the truth among North American citizens and especially among teenagers and young adults.

Following are brief excerpts from just a few of the numerous newspaper articles published in Toronto's four major dailies that were part of this phenomena in the media capital of Canada.

Unable to be included are all the large, positive front page headlines ("Sea of Love" – Star, July 28; "HE'S HERE!" - Sun, July 24; "Beaming Pope Wows Pilgrims", Globe - July 26; "The journey to joy is painful, Pope says" - National Post July 26), the huge full-color front page photos and the several special newspaper sections that were published with articles and inspiring photos during the World Youth Days:

EXCERPTS

“When I walked into one of the major TV network offices, those present burst into applause: one senior woman blurted out: ’This is one of the most beautiful stories we have ever covered. Thanks for helping to arrange it."’
Column by Fr. Tom Rosica, World Youth Day chief organizer
Toronto Sun, July 29, 2002

"While some have chosen to use the Pope's arrival as a whipping post for every complaint they have with the world, look at the false idols they offer instead - a blind faith in big government or big business, both so widely discredited today. Then there are those who proclaim, loudly, that they believe in nothing, meaning, of course, they are ready to fall for anything. By contrast, John Paul II has been a man of faith, of his word, of courage, of reconciliation, of compassion and forgiveness...That faith could forge such a man speaks to the value of faith itself."
Main editorial, Toronto Sun, July 24, 2002

“John Paul, we have a confession to make. We underestimated you. Thanks. Thank you for reminding us, regardless of our religion, about the importance of duty and determination. About the power of faith and the power of God. Thank you for bringing to Toronto those hundreds of thousands of wonderful and sincere young people...”
Main editorial, Toronto Sun, July 29, 2002

“...as the papal coverage built to a deafening crescendo over the past week, until it was difficult to distinguish some of our main media outlets from the Vatican press office, I started to ponder a different question: ‘How can one keep any sort of secular perspective in a world awash in faith."’
Anti-Catholic, strongly pro-abortion columnist Linda McQuaig
Toronto Star (Canada's largest circulation newspaper), July 28

"There's a reason young people respond to the Pope: He likes them , and like all youngsters, they know the real deal when they see it...Mortified to find myself alternately weeping and grinning merely at the sight of him, I phoned the Toronto Police Chief, Julian Fantino...'He shows us all how we can live, no matter what happens,' the Chief said. He sees nothing but goodness flowing from this visit. Who could disagree?...Catholics such as Chief Fantino feel blessed by his presence; the ignoble and sacrilegeous like me fell lucky."
Regular columnist Christie Blatchford, National Post, July 24, 2002

“...the issues of modern day aren't so ‘modern’ after all. St. Paul's letters make clear that the early Christians lived in a society every bit as materialistic, selfish, violent and exploitive as our own... The Pope stands tall not because he changed, but because he's had the courage to remain constant. That's precisely why his message will remain relevant and have staying power.”
Column by Guy Giorno, Chief of staff to former Ontario Premier Mike Harris, Toronto Star, July 28

“The groups of young Catholics brandishing flags of their countries, singing, cheerful, polite and friendly, marching through Toronto, have had a stunning effect....They put cynics to shame.”
Columnist Peter Worthington (pro-abortion), Toronto Sun, July 29

“I’m an Anglican myself, but hurrah for the Catholics!… What a mistake it would have been, if this Holy Father had cheapened the Church, by trying to ‘change with the times’ by ordaining women, accepting birth control, allowing homosexual marriage, gutting the liturgy, appointing hip bishops – the whole gamut of my generation’s minimum demands. Such experiments have been tried in most of the other mainstream churches; they have helped to empty them. The young want something more than convenience from their Church – or moral support for immoral behaviour. They don’t want to sever the roots sunk down through the ages.”
Column by David Warren, National Post, July 29

“The response across Canada to the visit of John Paul II suggests many Canadians dissent from the orthodoxies of our public class. The massive outpouring of religious sentiment in Toronto …was a manifestation of man’s quest to find meaning in life, a quest that neither material improvement nor modernity can fully satisfy.”
Editorial, National Post, July 29

“Thunder marked the Pope’s arrival yesterday at Mass and he spoke immediately of the primordial struggle between ‘life and death’, between ‘truth and falsehood.”’
Column by Fr. Raymond de Sousa, National Post, July 29

“The most unbelievable experience I’ve had in 31 years of policing… All these people and no trouble, it was breathtaking, out of this world”
Toronto Police Sgt. Jim Muscat, after working all night
National Post, July 29

“The human person is the most precious resource of any nation or any economy…so let our youth listen to the Pope on World Youth Day and take away some advice to make it a better world. Lord knows, we have not taught our children well”.
Linda Leatherdale, in article on corporate scandals and corruption in her regular Money column, Toronto Sun, July 28

“The irony is that what critics see as the pope’s weakness is his greatest strength. John Paul has proven what politicians say but don’t mean: if you are true to yourself, and if your heart is pure, people will respect you, even if they disagree with you… And because John Paul, throughout his papacy, has been true to himself, he towers above politicians when it comes to public respect…May God bless him and keep him with us for many years to come.”
Editorial, A force for good, for God, Toronto Sun, July 28

“As a non-Catholic I found the event quite inspirational. And quite frankly, I got a little tired of all the whining about clogged roads, about how World Youth Day didn’t include non-Catholics and on and on.. Frankly, as an Anglican I envy the Catholic Church the ability to organize such an event…The reason the Pope maintains his moral authority is that he doesn’t take political sides. He takes on all sides, right or left, for what he sees is right, is moral.”
Regular political columnist Christina Blizzard, Toronto Sun, July 28

“All right. I give up. I’ve been overcome by a surge of papal envy. I didn’t think World Youth Day would matter much to me, but I wasn’t ready for the waves that one such old man and 200,000 or so teenagers can create.
Think about it: the usually self-centered media of the city being dominated – no, monopolized – by the Roman Catholic Church for almost two weeks. Every public space in the city – and many outside it – overrun by groups of cheerful, well-scrubbed young people, all looking for something nice to do.
Only events on the magnitude of Sept. 11 have commanded more space in the media recently.
As an Anglican I have a lot of problems with the Catholic Church – all the usual ones like abortion, contraception, divorce…but the hordes at World Youth Day knocked me out.
So, if there’s one thing this past week has proven, it is that the deity is alive and well in millions of hearts and you don’t have to be a Catholic to see it or feel it. And it is a joy to see the crowds of youthful believers out there singing songs on the subway and behaving angelically.”
Regular columnist Connie Woodcock, Toronto Sun, July 28, 2002

“To be near delegates is to experience an unrelenting energy and sunniness of outlook, a fetching idealism. It is to feel their palpable longing for love and goodness, community and peace, meaning and God.”
Toronto Star columnist, Jim Coyle, July 26

“Media usually devoted to sport, crime and petty politics are dominated by the presence of an octogenarian, spiritual leader, religious rites and reports on the doing of good works. Leaders of our three levels of government…visit the Pope…and have seldom seemed so puny, their temporal concerns shrinking into insignificance compared with his.”
Toronto Star columnist, Jim Coyle, July 28

"To his very end...Pope John Paul II is making his stand on the same ground he has stood his entire life. He rejects the moral relativism of today's secular humanism. He believes, with every fibre of his own aged and pain-racked being, that both good and evil, life and darkness, exist, and that choices must be made between them.

This view of the nature of existence is, of course, directly contrary to the prevailing moral and cultural climate. It postulates that the key to existence lies not inside each of us, as is the essence of contemporary individualism, but outside ourselves in the specific words and deeds and life of Jesus Christ."
Columnist Richard Gwyn, Toronto Star, July 28

An old man in a chair, in the year 2002, reads an update of the Sermon on the Mount to 200,000-plus young people, and one half is in tears while the other half can't stop cheering. It was a demonstration of prodigious charisma.
Those who criticize John Paul II, or his tenure as Pope, for turning the papacy into something of a celebrity machine have it all wrong, upside down. The rock stars and prefabricated celebrities of the big screen or the small box are a mere parody of real charisma. They rent charisma.
The appeal of John Paul II to young people in particular proceeds from substance. It begins in what he believes, gathers strength in how he believes, and is immensely amplified by his simple example. Conviction is an attractive quality in itself, but conviction allied to service is irresistible.
John Paul II is the most politically incorrect leader on the world stage. He is, according to most progressive opinion, on the wrong side of every right topic. ...He is gorgeously, consummately, politically incorrect.
And it doesn't matter a drat. For the crown of John Paul's charisma is, by his lights, that it doesn't flow from himself at all. It is the property of his religious faith -- the conviction ...that God is life.
Rex Murphy, Globe and Mail, July 27, 2002 Rex is a commentator with CBC-TV's The National http://www.globeandmail.ca/special/wyd/stories/murphy2002072...

"..the outpouring of affection is spontaneous, and wholly remarkable. No political leader, no musician or sports hero, can command such attention.
Just look at the faces of those kids who flocked to see him. As the Pope spoke to them for the first time this week, struggling through his illness to get the words out, they were absolutely rapt, straining to absorb every word. Some faces were wet with tears, others split by broad smiles. Only the sourest cynic would dismiss their feelings as childish celebrity worship.
Everyone is drawn to true greatness, and John Paul II is quite simply the greatest man alive...They cried, they laughed, they whooped, they cheered. Many of us cheered along with them."
Regular columnist Marcus Gee, Globe and Mail, July 27, 2002

Monday, July 29 – the Globe and Mail, Canada’s unofficial national abortion and gay rights advocacy newspaper, and officially a national news and business paper, published the full text of John Paul’s mass homily in a 2 page spread - without comment. This included a large, full colour photo of the Pope at the altar, surrounded by numerous bishops and cardinals during the Sunday mass. Most Globe writers could not resist their usual, anti-Christian scowling for the first few World Youth Days. By the end, though, they, too, published a significant amount of positive material on this overwhelmingly positive event.

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