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By Jonathan Luxmoore

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- Young people attending World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow, Poland, may have to walk up to nine miles to and from one of its key sites, event organizers said.

"They'll have to be ready for a long foot journey of several hours, but this has always been a feature of World Youth Days," said Anna Chmura, WYD's communications coordinator.

"There'll be several designated routes, mostly from Krakow, and they'll all be used heavily. But we're confident the logistics and security have now been carefully worked out," she told Catholic News Service.

The event, which runs July 26-31, is expected to bring 2 million people from 187 countries to the southern Polish city. They will be accompanied by 47 cardinals, 800 bishops and 20,000 priests.

The July 30-31 vigil and Mass, on the fourth and fifth days of Pope Francis' visit, will require nearly all of the participants to make the nine-mile journey to Campus Misericordiae, near Poland's Wieliczka salt mine, Chmura said.

Buses will be available only for the 2,000 handicapped people registered for the event, elderly pilgrims and those with special needs, she added.

"Although we don't have a final number for the buses, there'll certainly be dozens, but the foot pilgrimage theme is central to the WYD," Chmura explained.

"All registered groups from the various sectors will have their paths precisely indicated, to keep people moving and avoid logjams or safety hazards."

The closing events include an evening prayer vigil July 30 at the campus as pilgrims stay overnight at the site. World Youth Day concludes the morning of July 31 with Mass and recitation of the Angelus before Pope Francis departs for Rome.

Organizers said seven new bridges had been constructed nearby with 20 giant "eucharistic tents" as well as computer links to enable people worldwide to follow activities using 32 "pilgrim avatars."

Meanwhile, Wieliczka Mayor Artur Koziol said roads and highways had been widened, and irrigation ditches and dikes strengthened following heavy summer rainfall on the 450-acre site.

"We're effectively building a city of 2 million here, so there must be an appropriate infrastructure," Koziol told journalists June 29.

Krakow Mayor Jacek Majchrowski said an expected doubling of the city population during the event had necessitated "elasticity in transport and communications." Both Krakow and Wieliczka would be "as secure as the Vatican" during the celebration and that numerous scenarios had been reviewed for months by Poland's security personnel, he said.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw said he believed God would be "waiting for us with open arms" at World Youth Day, "whatever our sinfulness and failings." He predicted the event would foster "an attitude of mercy in the church toward all needy people."

"When discussing pastoral priorities, it's often asked whether it's essential such events are massive or whether forming groups and communities is more important. In reality, they both matter," Cardinal Nycz told the Polish church's Catholic information agency, KAI, June 28.

"I've heard from parents, both in Poland and abroad, that many are afraid of sending their children to Krakow because of the terrorist threat. I appeal to them to trust God and those responsible for security. Otherwise, the success will lie with those who wish to scare us," he said.

In a late June report, Krakow officials said 275 individual locations in and around the city would be used for events and that 184 schools had been requisitioned for overnight accommodation. There also are camping facilities for 28,000 people.

KAI reported that more than 920,000 people had registered for events by the June 30 deadline, including more than 77,000 Italians, 31,000 Spaniards, 35,000 French, 27,000 Americans and 14,000 Brazilians.

However, Father Grzegorz Suchodolski, secretary general of the World Youth Day Organizing Committee, cautioned that previous celebrations suggested up to three times as many could turn up without registering.

"We must reckon with the spontaneity of young people. Many still haven't even heard there's a registration system," the priest told KAI July 1.

"We're already seeing a miraculous increase in numbers, and I'm convinced God will bring many, many more. As the organizational team, we've given our two fishes and five loaves, and God is preparing baskets for all the leftovers."

Poland's state rail network, PKP, said June 24 it would provide 350 additional trains for visitors.

The head of the Polish church's Krakow-based Child Protection Center, Jesuit Father Adam Zak, said he was working with organizers to ensure safety of under-age participants, particularly among the 200,000 expected to be lodged with private families.

"All organizational procedures are being implemented satisfactorily, as planned, and we're waiting for pilgrims to arrive," Chmura told CNS.

"There are still a few details to be completed and sorted out. But there's still a month to go, so there's no need for alarm."

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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NEW YORK (CNS) -- Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and prolific author who died July 2 at age 87 in his New York home, has been remembered in tributes from around the world for standing up for human dignity and for being a witness to the world of the atrocities of the Holocaust.

When Pope Francis received the Charlemagne Prize May 6 for promoting European unity, he quoted Wiesel urging Europeans to undergo a "memory transfusion," to remember their fractured past when confronting issues that threaten again to divide it.

In its July 4 edition, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said Wiesel's legacy was his "appeal for collective responsibility in the face of horror and his call to unite the abilities of each person in pursuit of what is good."

That sentiment has been echoed by many.

President Barack Obama described Wiesel as "one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world."

And Vice President Joe Biden said Wiesel taught him "to understand the incomparable resilience of the human spirit -- our capacity to overcome virtually anything."

He said his friend Wiesel "had seen the depths of the darkness that we are capable of inflicting on one another" and his belief in the "the fundamental goodness of humanity," despite this knowledge, was all the more inspiring.

When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the citation said he was a "messenger to mankind," whose "message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity. His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief."

He accepted the award with a stern call that all who witness suffering and humiliation must take sides. "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented," he said.

Wiesel is most known for "Night," his autobiographical account of the horrors he witnessed in concentration camps as a teenager. It was published in 1960.

When he was 15, the Nazis sent him and his family to Auschwitz. His mother and his younger sister perished there. His two older sisters survived. He and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed," Wiesel wrote. The small volume, just over 100 pages, was initially something publishers were not sure would sell and is now required reading for many U.S. students.

The Catholic French author Francois Mauriac encouraged Wiesel to write the book, breaking his silence about his experience. The work not only is an account of what happened but a reflection on faith and God's presence amid unspeakable horrors.

Wiesel was born Sept. 30, 1928, in Sighet, a small village in Romania. In 1963 he became a U.S. citizen, and six years later he married Marion Rose, a fellow Holocaust survivor who translated some of his books into English. The couple had one son, Shlomo.

In 1978, he was chosen by President Jimmy Carter to head the President's Commission on the Holocaust to plan an American memorial museum to Holocaust victims. In 1993, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington opened with Wiesel's words carved in stone at its entrance: "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."

Wiesel was not only involved with the museum and with writing but he also taught college courses at Yale University, Boston University and the City University of New York.

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Washington D.C., Jul 5, 2016 / 12:19 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On America’s 240th Independence Day, Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh called on Catholics to be “footnotes” for the truth that is Christ.

“I would like to suggest, on this Fourth of July celebration, as we mark the end of our Fortnight for Freedom of 2016, that we take a look at how you and I are called to be footnotes. And footnotes to the truth that is none other than Jesus Christ, Himself,” Bishop Zubik exhorted the congregation at the July 4 closing Mass for the Fortnight for Freedom.

Using his undergraduate term papers as an example, the bishop explained that footnotes “help to embellish the truth of whatever is being conveyed. Footnotes strengthen the message that is being put forth.” Similarly, by their living witness, Catholics should point to Christ, he said.

Bishop Zubik preached the homily at the closing Mass for the Fortnight for Freedom, held Independence Day at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. was the main celebrant, with six bishops and 28 priests concelebrating. Some 1500 people were in attendance.

Apostolic Nuncio Christophe Pierre was also present at the Mass, as was Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chair of the U.S. Bishops’ ad hoc Committee on Religious Liberty.

The Fortnight for Freedom is an annual period of prayer, fasting, and education for the preservation of religious freedom called for by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It lasts from July 21, the eve of the feast of martyrs Thomas More and John Fisher, to July 4, Independence Day. The theme of the 2016 fortnight was “witnesses to freedom,” honoring the example of martyrs throughout the centuries.

Relics of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher made a U.S. tour during the fortnight, available for veneration by the faithful.

Drawing from the Gospel reading of John 14, Jesus’ discourse with the Apostles, Bishop Zubik noted that Jesus “speaks about giving them freedom, He speaks about giving them that internal peace which nobody else can give, and which nobody else can take away.”

Christians are called to live this internal freedom, he said, citing St. Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, “the freedom to equally and together stand up for the ultimate truth Who is Jesus Christ Himself.”

To be a “footnote,” he added, is really “to be a witness, to stand up for, to be a living sign of, to be a proponent for.” In the Greek language, a “witness” is called a “martyrion,” he explained, or a “martyr.”

Thus, to be a “footnote” for Christ means to be a “martyr, to have the guts to stand up for, to be a visible sign of the truth that is, in fact, Jesus Christ,” he added. Christians throughout the centuries have done just that, he said, from St. John the Baptist and Sts. Peter and Paul to Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher in the 16th century, to the martyrs of the 20th century like Blessed Miguel Pro and St. Maximilian Kolbe.

There are martyrs even today, he noted, like the 21 Coptic Christians “who were beheaded in February of last year on a seashore in Libya because they would not back off on the truth that is Jesus Christ.”

The Little Sisters of the Poor, who face crippling fines for refusing to comply with the administration’s contraception mandate, are also “powerful footnotes, witnesses, martyrs to the faith,” he said, because they “will not back off the truth that is, in fact, Jesus Christ.”

What Catholics in the U.S. must remember on the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is that “belief in the very existence of God” is “one of the foundations of this country,” he said.

It is also clear that at the beginning of the country “religious freedom” was understood not only to mean freedom to worship, he said, but applied to “how we live our faith when we walk outside the doors of our churches, our synagogues, and our mosques.”

Thus Catholics must be witnesses, “footnotes” to the faith in the public square, he insisted, and must not only “pray for the preservation of religious freedom,” but should also “speak up” for it and “live that religious freedom.”

“And so it is within the context of what we do here around the Lord’s table, the table of His word and the table of the Eucharist, that we beg God for the grace, for the strength, for the determination, for the guts to be footnotes, to be witnesses, to be martyrs for the cause of Jesus Christ,” he said.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Jaclyn Lippelmann, Catholic Standard

By Mark Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The theme for the 2016 Fortnight for Freedom, "Witnesses to Freedom," unfolded as 1,500 people spent part of their July 4 holiday in Washington attending the observance's closing Mass and venerating the relics of two English saints martyred in 1535 for their Catholic faith.

The Mass and veneration took place at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. After the Mass, people waited in a long line to kneel and pray before the relics of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More displayed near the altar.

Welcoming the congregation, Msgr. Walter Rossi, the shrine's rector, said those filling what is the largest Catholic church in North America offered "testimony that the freedom to live our lives according to our faith is fundamental to the life of believers."

The U.S. Catholic Church's fifth annual Fortnight for Freedom closing Mass included the participation of three of the petitioners in a recent Supreme Court case challenging the federal contraceptive mandate. They contended that the requirement violated their religious freedom by forcing Catholic institutions to provide employee health insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures, which are prohibited by church teaching.

Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, whose archdiocese and affiliated agencies challenged the mandate, was the main celebrant at the Mass. The homilist was Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik, whose diocese also opposed the Health and Human Services contraceptive coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act.

The consolidated case that was before the Supreme Court, Zubik v. Burwell, is named for the bishop and for Sylvia Burwell, who is HHS secretary. A group of Little Sisters of the Poor -- whose religious order also challenged the mandate -- sat in a pew near the front of the congregation and received a long standing ovation at the end of the Mass.

On May 16, the Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling sent the case back to lower courts, vacated earlier judgments against those parties opposing the mandate and encouraged the plaintiffs and the federal government to resolve their differences.

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, was a concelebrant at the Mass. Along with Bishop Zubik, other concelebrants included Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty; Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio and Auxiliary Bishop Richard B. Higgins of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services; Auxiliary Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Washington; and Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield, the USCCB's general secretary.

In his homily, Bishop Zubik commended the congregation for standing together and praying for religious freedom "on this 240th anniversary of our freedom in our United States," dating back to the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776.

He noted that just as footnotes in a term paper solidify the accuracy and strengthen the message of a point being made, "you and I are called to be footnotes, footnotes to the truth who is Jesus Christ himself."

Catholics are called to be witnesses to Jesus and to be a living sign of his truth, the bishop said, adding that for some, that witness takes the form of martyrdom.

Bishop Zubik said "our ancestors in the faith" demonstrate what it means to be a footnote to Jesus' truth, and then be witnesses and sometimes martyrs. He pointed to St. John the Baptist, who was beheaded when he refused to give in to political power.

Pittsburgh's bishop praised the example of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, a layman and a bishop, respectively, as witnesses and martyrs who "would not yield supremacy of power over faith, even to the king."

Both men refused to accept Parliament's Act of Supremacy, which had declared that King Henry VIII was head of the Church of England. Both were imprisoned for treason in the Tower of London for months. They were beheaded 14 days apart in 1535; Bishop Fisher was 65, More was 57.

The relic of St. John Fisher was a ring that had belonged to him. The relics of St. Thomas More were a piece of his jawbone and one half of a tooth. The national shrine was the last stop of the tour for the relics, which earlier been displayed in Miami, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Denver, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

In his homily, Bishop Zubik also highlighted the heroic example of other martyrs, including St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish Franciscan friar who gave up his life for another man in 1941 at the Auschwitz concentration camp, and Blessed Oscar Romero, the Salvadoran archbishop and champion of the poor who was shot in the heart while celebrating Mass in 1980. Bishop Zubik also praised the witness of the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians beheaded by Islamic State militants on a beach in Libya in 2015.

Bishop Zubik noted that the Little Sisters of the Poor in their service to the elderly poor and in their stand for religious freedom "are carrying the banner that we will not back off the truth that is Jesus Christ."

He noted that the nation's forefathers put forth religious liberty as the first freedom in the Constitution's Bill of Rights, giving people the freedom "to worship our God as the source of our strength, and also to "live our faith outside our churches, synagogues and mosques."

Opponents to the HHS mandate have charged that it offered exemptions to religious groups in houses of worship, but not to educational, health care and charitable ministries operated by churches, which they said are as essential to the practice of faith as prayer is.

Bishop Zubik concluded his homily by encouraging people to "pray that we may build on our ancestors of faith and our ancestors in our country and be witnesses to religious freedom." That witness involves praying, speaking out and acting on behalf of religious freedom, and living that freedom, he said.

The intercessions included a prayer that the president, judges and lawmakers will uphold religious freedom and protect the conscience rights of all people, and that religious-sponsored educational, healthcare and charitable outreach programs will be free to fulfill their mission.

Cardinal Wuerl read a prayer for government written in 1791 by Baltimore Archbishop John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the new United States.

In remarks after Communion, Archbishop Lori said he hoped the saints' relics venerated that day "will spur all of us on to cherish, protect and use wisely the gift of freedom." He thanked dioceses, parishes and individual Catholics for their activities during the Fortnight for Freedom, which ran from June 21 -- the vigil of the feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More -- to July 4. Archbishop Lori had celebrated the fortnight's opening Mass in Baltimore at the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Archbishop Lori also encouraged people to pray daily for religious freedom and to use that freedom to spread the Gospel, especially the works of mercy, and to stand in solidarity with persecuted people around the world.

People entering the national shrine by its main doors could see a 30-by-50-foot U.S. flag draped from the Knights' Tower, which was provided by the Knights of Columbus. The Mass concluded on a patriotic note, with the singing of "America the Beautiful."

The fortnight's closing Mass was telecast live by the Eternal Word Television Network and also appeared on CatholicTV.

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Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington.

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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