In 1984 over 300,000 young people from around the world responded to the invitation of His Holiness John Paul for an international jubilee of youth on Palm Sunday. The Holy Father entrusted to the youth the World Youth Day Cross as a symbol of the love of Chris for humanity. Every Palm Sunday since was been designated as a World Youth Day. There have been twelve celebrations, where the youth continue to carry home the message received to be Christ’s light to the world.
This past summer the thirteenth World Youth Day was celebrated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Nearly 2 million youth attended from around 190 different countries. On March 24th Pope Francis announced in mass that he would be leading the 2013 WYD. There were five main events during the three days festival opening mass, papal welcoming ceremony, way of the cross, vigil, and on the last day a final mass. Pope Francis attended all these events celebrating and educating the youth about Jesus Christ.
Description of Elaboration Likelihood Model; most people are aware and actively think about ideas and therefore process via a central route. However there are so people who aren’t interested in the message, they don’t have time to process actively or have the ability to evaluate the message with an open mind, in these cases it is better to take a peripheral route. This means that people are often influenced by repetition of a message and highly credible spokespeople. In other words, you may not want to think about this but we are going to make it worth your while.
The World Youth Day festival fits perfectly with the Elaboration Likelihood Model. When it comes to Catholicism and the Catholic Church there is not a more credible spokesperson then the Pope and having him at this event provides credibility for the message. Also the event was repeated over three days and was talked about on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites for months before and after the event this provided repetition of the message. Also the World Youth Day event is held every two to three years, which also provides repetition of the message.
This event was a brilliant public relations move by the Pope and the Catholic Church. Over the years youth have been looked down upon by older generations, their opinions have not been respected and they are becoming less and less involved with the religion especially the Catholic Church. Since Pope Francis became pope he has been very outspoken about the importance of youth, supporting them and encouraging them to become more involved in the church. This event was a perfect way for him to empower the youth, showing them they are important and valued and educate them about Jesus Christ.
Click here to watch the official World Youth Day video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8u7XG-eSoQ
This event was extremely successful over 2 million people showed up and at some point in some way were talking about the pope or Jesus Christ. I don’t think there is any other way Pope Francis could impact that many people so directly. I happened to be in Brazil a couple of days after this event and people were still buzzing about it almost every young person you saw hap a World Youth Day sticker, t-shirt or backpack. It was even more special because Pope Francis is the first pope from South America so there was a great since of pride when he was there.
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