Snohomish County Catholics return from trip to see pope in Madrid

Published 12:01 am Saturday, September 24, 2011

Ashleigh Mueller was overcome with joy as she watched Pope Benedict XVI come on stage outside Madrid, Spain.

The Snohomish girl’s experience was shared by more than 1 million Catholic teenagers from around the world who made a pilgrimage to World Youth Day, a global festival for Catholic youth centered around a Mass with the pope.

The festival happens every three years in a different country. The 2014 event will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

When pilgrims celebrated Mass with the pope on Aug. 21 at the Cuatro Vientos aerodrome, Ashleigh, 16, felt something she never had before.

“Though everyone was different, we were all there for the same reason,” she said. “It was very real to see the father of our church in person, and all the people who were there for our religion.”

The Glacier Peak High School junior was part of a group from Snohomish County’s Catholic parishes who went on the trip in August. She goes to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Bothell.

Teens and chaperones from St. Thomas More in Lynnwood and Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Perpetual Help parishes in Everett were part of the same group.

At the beginning of the trip, the delegation stayed in Rome for a few days. The pilgrims visited historic sites and toured the Vatican.

They often ran into pilgrims from other countries, posed for photographs and exchanged small tokens from their respective homelands, said Casey Ross, a youth minister from Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Perpetual Help who served as a chaperone on the trip.

The Sistine Chapel, the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Peter’s Square: Arielle Howard tried to soak up everything.

“Once you go into the Vatican Museums, you don’t know where to look, because there’s just so much to see,” she said.

Arielle, 16, of Monroe, attends St. Mary of the Valley with her family. She is home-schooled.

A talented pianist, she has performed with two other young musicians to help raise money for her church’s World Youth Day delegation.

The night before the final Mass with the pope, Arielle and others camped in the Cuatro Vientos aerodrome, a huge field outside Madrid.

“It was amazing to see people from all these countries, speaking in different languages but united because they share the same faith,” Arielle said.

Katya Yefimova: 425-339-3452, kyefimova@heraldnet.com.