Italian youth most represented in WYD registrations

Cologne, Germany, Aug 14, 2005 / 22:00 pm

Young people from all over the world have registered for World Youth Day (WYD) in Cologne, Germany, this week. The top five countries represented in the registrations are European.

WYD organizers have released the latest numbers, which reveal that about one-quarter of all registered participants are from Italy.

A little less than 400,000 Catholic youth have registered for the international event, set to take place Aug. 16-21, and 100,000 Italians have registered.

German youth come in second with about 80,000 and French youth have about 70,000 registrations. Then comes Poland and Spain.

The United States comes in sixth with about 23,000 young people registered and Canada seventh with almost 7,000.

While some are surprised that the biggest number of registrations does not belong to Germany, some organizers have pointed out that there are 30,000 people volunteering at WYD — most of them are German youth. Many more are expected to participate at the last minute.