Pilgrims from the United States will travel halfway around the world to attend World Youth Day with Pope Benedict XVI in Sydney, Australia.

The U.S. will send 15,000 young people to the international event that takes place July 15-20, and the delegation is the largest representing any country outside of Australia, according to U.S. organizers.

The gathering in Sydney marks the 10th international celebration of World Youth Day since Pope John Paul established the event in 1985.

 “It’s one of the most pinnacle events in the Catholic Church every three years for youth,” says John Collart, a youth minister for the three parishes in Sandusky who is leading pilgrims from the Diocese of Toledo to Australia for World Youth Day (WYD08).

His group includes 58 young people and adults from Sandusky Holy Angels, St. Mary and SS. Peter & Paul parishes; New London Our Lady of Lourdes; Findlay St. Michael; Columbus Grove St. Anthony; and St. Patrick in Wellington, Ohio, a village that borders the eastern edge of the Diocese of Toledo.

They depart from Cleveland July 10, flying through Los Angeles to arrive in Sydney July 12. They return home July 22.

At the end of May, the Catholic News Service reported tickets have been hard to come by for U.S. pilgrims because only two carriers have flights between the United States and Australia: Qantas and United Airlines. Airline tickets range from $2,000 to $5,000.

A Qantas representative told CNS the majority of direct flights from the United States to Australia go through Los Angeles, which is a 20-hour flight. The airline added one flight from the United States for World Youth Day.

Mr. Collart says his group began planning to attend World Youth Day nearly two years in advance and started fundraising 18 months ago. They booked their flights last fall.

The trip costs $3,490 for each person in the group, with more than $2,000 of that going toward airfare. The price also includes hotel accommodations and a WYD registration fee that covers meals and ground transportation.
 
The pilgrims have been busy fundraising for the trip with spaghetti dinners, silent auctions and other events, and some have found generous parishioners to sponsor their trip.

Mr. Collart calls World Youth Day an important “cultural and spiritual” experience. Pilgrims from around the world pray, eat and socialize together, sharing prayers with one another in their respective languages.

“It’s just a fantastic spiritual experience,” says Mr. Collart.

World Youth Day events typically draw hundreds of thousands of youths, and in some countries they have reached or surpassed the 1 million mark.

The largest World Youth Day turnout was 4 million in Manila, Philippines, in 1995. Other big crowds include: 2 million in Rome in 2000; 1.6 million in Czestochowa, Poland, in 1991; 1.2 million in Paris in 1997; and 1 million in Cologne, Germany, in 2005.

Because of distance and cost, this year’s event in Sydney will be on a much smaller scale. Organizers announced the number of registered participants was nearing 200,000 on June 23.

“Our estimations for the event have always been based on 125,000 international and 100,000 domestic registered pilgrims,” WYD08 Chief Operating Officer Danny Casey said in a statement on the event Web site.

Several weeks before the event, Mr. Casey expected the WYD08 estimate of around 225,000 registrations to be met or exceeded.

“With almost 40 extra flights coming into Sydney airport just for the event, there is no doubt this city will be awash with hundreds of thousands of joyous young people — and let’s not forget one very important head of state!” he added.

Registration figures do not include members of the public who wish to attend some of the major events. At the final Mass, more than 500,000 people are expected to fill Randwick Racecourse and Centennial Park.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will also sponsor a Mass for all U.S. groups for the first time at World Youth Day. It is to be celebrated July 19 at an outdoor location in the center of Sydney.

The same day, nearly 200 young people from northwest Ohio will gather at Lehman Catholic High School in Sidney, Ohio, to experience World Youth Day “At Home” with other youth from Ohio and Michigan.

The weekend gathering will include speakers, workshops, music and taped segments of Pope Benedict XVI in Australia.

For more on World Youth Day, visit www.wyd2008.org.

CNS reports contributed to this story.