Nepalese Catholics await visas to attend World Youth Day in Germany

Published: 2005-08-01

KATMANDU, Nepal (CNS) -- Armed with new passports but still awaiting visas, a small group of young Nepalese Catholics prepared to go to Germany for World Youth Day celebrations with Pope Benedict XVI. "We are staying at the church and praying that we are granted visas by the German Embassy," said Santlal Murmu, one of the six delegates, most of them converts to Catholicism. They were chosen from five of Nepal's six parishes to represent local Catholic youth at the international event scheduled for Aug. 16-21 in Cologne. The six young people waited at Assumption Church in Katmandu, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. Murmu, a 23-year-old tribal youth, had just arrived in the capital July 26 with two other young men after a 16-hour bus ride on muddy roads from eastern Nepal. Monsoon rains on the roads were not the only hazard; Maoist guerrillas regularly call strikes, block roads and attack vehicles.

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