Not every Catholic in Australia is thrilled about World Youth Day — and one leading critic is taking the time to make sure the press knows about his displeasure:

A group of Catholic priests opposed to church modernisation has condemned World Youth Day as an appalling display of secularism with little holy or Catholic content.

The priests, from the Holy Cross Seminary in the New South Wales town of Goulburn, are members of the Society of St Pius the 10th, which is opposed to innovations that followed the Second Vatican Council.

In a sharp rebuke of World Youth Day festivities in Sydney, Holy Cross Rector Father Peter Scott said World Youth Day did nothing to help prepare the way for Catholics to reach heaven.

“The reason I’m not in favour of World Youth Day is because of what happens and what has consistently happened since it was initiated by Pope John Paul II,” Father Scott told AM.

“It has become an occasion for a very secular approach to religion, it’s become just a happy party – a week of partying and concerts and world activities with very little that is truly holy and sacred and prayerful and Catholic for that matter,” he said.

World Youth Day events in Sydney have been characterised by overt displays of joy described by observers as more akin to a rock concert than organised religion, with parties and other festivities a feature of the program.

Along with the spiritual aspects of the event, the social interaction that comes with hundreds of thousands of young people mingling is also a big attraction for the pilgrims.

“Just the euphoria of everyone coming together, all different countries for one purpose, for peace,” said one young female pilgrim.

“It’s a good time because you can do so many things you don’t expect to be doing and there’s great people, you can be doing partying when you don’t expect to,” said a young male participant.

Father Scott is sharply opposed to the strong secular atmosphere around the event.

“They’ll have a few masses, a few experiences, but they’ll be very liberal, easy-going, secular unsacred kinds of things.

“We consider ourselves, that we are the mainstream. We are the true Catholics.

“We are doing what the church has always done. We follow Catholic tradition, we have the traditional mass only, and every other traditional liturgical and spiritual practice which is necessary to sanctify our lives on this earth and go to heaven,” he said.

There’s more, but you get the idea.

Meantime, perhaps those unhappy priests should chat with these happy nuns: a group of Carmelites blogging about their experience Down Under:

Today, as all the others, was exceptionally graced. We met with nine other sisters from our group and found our way to Barangaroo in Darling Harbor, which was the place of the opening Mass for World Youth Day. (A little history lesson: “Barangaroo” is the name of the wife of an indigenous King named “Bennelong.” Both he and his wife had influence in the colonization of Sydney.) We were actually one of the first couple of 1000 that arrived – which was very nice. We were able to find our area with “no worries” – that’s a famous Aussie phrase 🙂 We got our lunch within 15 minutes of entering our area – another blessing. The young people were so excited and you could feel the genuine happiness of the people – it was an excitement that was not obnoxious or hysterical – it was true joy with a peace. This peace seemed to ripple through the crowd of about 150,000 people as Mass began, because there was an amazing quiet and reverence during the whole of the Mass. At the last minute, the Sisters, along with many pilgrims, were ushered into the VIP section – there were empty chairs. Though we were not super close, we had chairs to sit on (a blessing from our Lord!) and we could see the stage. As the Mass proceeded, I marveled at the quiet hush that fell over the masses – it was very reverent. Holy Communion was the same. There was a quiet peace. If the pilgrims were not singing, they were in silent thanksgiving – there was a true sense of the sacred.

Visit the link for more. Sounds pretty “holy, sacred, prayerful and Catholic” to me.