Where thousands of Catholic youth gather from all over the world, it is important that there also be the opportunity for them to experience the millenary liturgical tradition of their Catholic heritage.

Juventutem, a worldwide organization of youth dedicated to the traditions of the Catholic Faith including the traditional form of the Latin liturgy, will be present at World Youth Day 2008 with groups from several countries. Holy Mass and the Divine Office will be said according to the extraordinary form of the Latin Rite; the youth will have the opportunity to pariticipate in traditional devotions, as well as much good fellowship. To join the USA chapter of Juventutem, contact info@juventutemusa.org. For the schedule of activities at World Youth Day, to contact groups from other countries, and for more information on Juventutem itself, visit:

http://www.juventutem.org/pages/intro.php

Dear Young Members of the International Juventutem Federation,

You are young Catholics, loyal to the hierarchy of the Church and attracted by the “forma extraordinaria” of the Roman liturgy, in particular by the Missal of the Blessed John XXIII. I encourage you in your aim, that is to say your sanctification through the Roman traditions of the Church.

The presence of your little groups in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and Oceania demonstrates the universal attraction of the most ancient forms of the Roman liturgy, whose particular transcendence serves to connect the most diverse cultures.

From this liturgy, you will receive special help in coming better to know and love Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, as the Holy Father wrote on 7th July 2007: “Immediately after the Second Vatican Council, it might have been imagined that the demand for the use of the 1962 Missal would have been limited to the older generation, which had grown up with it, but it has since become clear that young people were also discovering this liturgical form, feeling attracted to it and finding in it a type of contact with the Most Holy Eucharist which suited them particularly well.” (Letter to the

Bishops, accompanying the Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum“)

As a sign of your devotion to the Sacrament of the Eucharist, your Juventutem Federation has chosen as its emblem a monstrance. I also know that you will be present at the International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec in June 2008.

I therefore wish to renew my encouragement of your progress in Christian piety and friendship via the Roman traditions of the Church. May you continue to obtain ever deeper sanctification, which will make you enthusiastic witnesses of the love of Christ in communion with His Church.

Dario Card. Castrillon Hoyos,

President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei 

Vatican City

17th January 2008.