Andari noted that the “happy outcome of the initiative is also down to co-operation between the Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and the President of the Maronite League, Michel Eddé, who considers [links with] the diaspora of Lebanese people as a priority. To prepare the programme, the Maronite League started making contacts “starting from the Christmas period, sending message to Maronite bishops in Latin America.”

Mgr Georges Abi Younes, Maronite Bishop of Mexico, sent Mexican youths to send some time in their country of origin before going to Cologne.

Mexican Lebanese keep the memory of their country of origin live through oral tradition. They tell new generations the story of their ancestors who fled Lebanon at the beginning of last century by boarding a ship headed for America.

Jacqueline Kassis, 20 years, said: “Mexicans of Lebanese origin left their land at the beginning of the twentieth century without any guarantees about their future, and today they have made it to key posts in the political life and industry of the country.”

Maria Semaan, 17 years, said youths managed to “preserve the dress and traditions of their ancestors” and she emphasised that she is going to Cologne “to meet Benedict XVI and other young pilgrims with the desire of seeing a more just and tolerant world”.

Joseph Geha, another prospective participant of the Cologne meeting, said this is “the first time he takes part in the WYD”. And he drew attention to his desire to take to youths of the world “the religious, cultural and spiritual values of Lebanon”, of cohabitation and dialogue among Christians and Muslims: that which Pope John Paul II had defined as “the message of Lebanon” for the world.