‘Overstaying’ WYD delegates urged to come home

AN official of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on Tuesday appealed to Filipino delegates who attended the recent World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain, and who are still in Europe to make sure they return home and not turn into undocumented or illegal immigrants.

Fr. Conegundo Garganta, executive secretary of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Youth, warned that the trust the Spanish government had in the Philippine Catholic Church when they issued visas for the Filipinos would be damaged if they did not come home.

The World Youth Day festival held last week was graced by the presence of Pope Benedict XVI. Addressing the 1.5 million young people who attended the closing day, the pontiff urged them to become missionaries for the faith, to “share with others the joy of your faith.”

Garganta said that, so far, “70 percent” of the 427 delegates who attended the youth festival under the aegis of the commission had returned to Manila and the commission was still trying to account for the rest.

About 1,500 other Filipinos attended the festival with their own groups, he said.

“They should come back and be thankful that they were able to attend the 26th World Youth Day in Spain,” Garganta said at a Church-organized, weekly media forum at Ilustrado Restaurant in Intramuros, Manila.

“They should bring home what they learned. They could share many things with those waiting for them,” he said.

If they do not return, one consequence is that it might hurt the local Church’s relations with the Spanish embassy in Manila, Garganta said.

During the World Youth Day celebrations held in Germany in 2005 and in Canada in 2002, some Filipino delegates did not return home.

However, Garganta emphasized it was still too early to say if any Filipino delegate had jumped ship because the Schengen visa the Spanish embassy had given them would expire only by mid-September.

“Only when that happens can we see the number of those who returned and remained true to our agreement that this is a spiritual and church activity and that they should return to the Philippines,” Garganta said.

Report from Inquirer.Net