Utahns experience World Youth Day: Christina Malloy

Courtesy photo/Christina Malloy

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SANDY — A connection with people she met in the organization Crossroads for Life led Blessed Sacrament parishioner Christina Malloy to Madrid for World Youth Day.

A student at Salt Lake Community College, Malloy saved money from her job to pay for her trip to Spain.

"It was just crazy," she said. "With so many people it was just overwhelming, and a lot of them were young, my age, so that was cool, too."

While there for the week-long event, she attended daily Mass, heard Pope Benedict XVI speak, and viewed the brightly painted, large statues that comprised the outdoor Stations of the Cross. In addition to the official World Youth Day events, she attended a Viva la Vida conference put on by the Irish pro-life organization Youth Defense. A number of pro-life speakers were at the conference, which was in conjunction with World Youth Day but not part of the sanctioned events, she said.

"Being able to be there with everyone, to celebrate our faith" was amazing, Malloy said. "Everywhere you went, everyone that was there, all the pilgrims, they all seemed so joyous and happy to be there. People would just be singing chants and cheering for each other's countries."

For example, when others saw Malloy's American flag, they would chant ‘USA, USA,' or when they saw someone with an Italian flag they would shout ‘Italia,' she said.

One of the highlights of her trip was when, a few days after a World Youth Day presentation in which the speaker commented about how joyous the participants were, Malloy and some of her friends were in a bar. "A Spanish couple talked to us and told us the guy is agnostic and he was saying that he was kind of jealous of us Catholics because we're so joyful," she said.