Last Updated: Tuesday - 01/04/2011

Youth have power to evangelize, says CWL president

OTTAWA — "Young people have become a great and fascinating witness and a powerful means of evangelization to the Church," says Vivian Bosch, national president of the Catholic Women's League.

In her summer 2001 report, posted to the web site of the CWL (www.cwl.ca) July 4, the CWL president said no one person created World Youth Day. "It was the young people themselves who created them," she said.

"Those days, those encounters, then became something desired by young people throughout the world, and the holy energy experienced has kept the momentum going," Bosch said.

Members of the World Youth Day team are to explain plans for WYD 2002 in Toronto at the CWL's annual convention in Calgary Aug. 12-15.

Bishop Fred Henry is to concelebrate Mass with several bishops and priests at the opening ceremonies of the convention at Holy Spirit Church. The CWL, with more than 100,000 members, is the largest national organization of Catholic women in Canada.

The Open Door is the theme of the CWL convention, which will include a talk on "the new evangelization," by Joanne Chafe, director of the National Office of Religious Education for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

League members will also embark on a new campaign with the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace entitled, Women Changing the World.

The CWL has been a partner with the CCODP for over 30 years and has contributed more than $1 million through its One Per Cent Program, which involves contributions of one per cent of funds raised yearly by all councils.

In the past, the program has sponsored three projects, one each from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The projects aim to help people in Third World countries participate in their own development and in so doing develop pride and independence as well as to foster sustainable change, the organization said.

The projects the CWL will support under the new campaign are in El Salvador, Bangladesh and Nigeria.

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