Some 2,000 Irish pilgrims arrived in Rome yesterday to participate in World Youth Day celebrations.
Pope John Paul II is due to preside over a welcome ceremony for participants in the Jubilee of Youth this evening. The celebrations will culminate next weekend in a prayer vigil and Mass for 1.5 million people on the outskirts of Rome.
The Irish contingent will follow a programme of prayer, catechesis and cultural visits, including a passage through the Holy Door of St Peter's to obtain the special Jubilee Year indulgence.
The pilgrims are guests of local Italian parishes, with the contingent from the diocese of Dublin lodging in school halls in Ostia, once the thriving port of ancient Rome, while the group from Galway is accommodated at the Irish College near St John the Lateran.
The luckiest pilgrims of all - 15 young people from Tahiti, Sri Lanka, the Congo, Canada and Italy - will be staying as guests of the Pope at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.
The World Youth Day festivities represent one of the largest spiritual gatherings of Christians, with pilgrims arriving from 160 countries.
Organisers have set up 312 open-air confessionals in the Circus Maximus, where ancient Romans once applauded chariot races. Some 2,000 priests will take it in turns to absolve the sins of as many as 300,000 young pilgrims in 32 languages.
Pilgrims can attend debates and concerts, and receive catechesis from 323 bishops. Archbishop Desmond Connell of Dublin will lead prayers and reflection on the theme "The Word was made Flesh and Dwelt among Us" for Irish and Australian participants in Ostia tomorrow.
On Friday, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Vicar of Rome, will preside at Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. But the high point of the pilgrimage will come on Saturday evening when Pope John Paul joins more than a 1.5 million people for a prayer vigil near the University of Tor Vergata, south of Rome.
The gathering, in a field that has a stage measuring 2,000 square metres and a wood-and-concrete cross 36 metres tall, poses a logistical challenge for the organisers. A food company has been contracted to supply nine million meals, and more than five million litres of bottled water will be on hand.
The 5,000 police on duty at the event will be backed up by 25,000 volunteers to provide advice and assistance to participants. There will be 12 first-aid centres and an air-conditioned hospital tent. Organisers say up to 10 babies could be born in the course of the event.
Pilgrims will stay overnight in sleeping bags at Tor Vergata and then join the Pope for Mass, concelebrated with more than 600 priests, on Sunday morning. For Irish participants, as for the half-million pilgrims who have travelled from outside Italy, it will be an occasion to remember.