Madrid provides stormy climax for pope's visit

The most intense day of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Madrid saw the biggest coming together of Catholics in the history of Spain on Saturday night. Hundreds of thousands of people, the majority of them young visitors in the capital for the World Youth Day (WYD), massed at the Cuatro Vientos airfield in the south of the city to listen to the pope.

But a summer storm, accompanied by strong winds that left seven injured when several tents collapsed, forced the pontiff to interrupt his speech just after he had begun. In it he was planning to tell the young people of his plans for the future, as well as urging them to listen to the "call of Christ," according to a press release provided by the organizers of the event. Some of them, the note explained, would be called upon to form a marriage "in which a man and a woman form a single flesh." Others would be called to the priesthood or the spiritual life.

"Don't you know that the pope is coming? You can't dress like that"

With temperatures reaching 39ºC at 5pm, it was hard to "keep the faith"

The hundreds of thousands of pilgrims listened to the shortened speech by the pope after hours spent waiting in the baking sunshine. Earlier in the day, during a Mass the pope gave in the Almudena cathedral in central Madrid, the pontiff delivered a strong defense of celibacy in front of 5,000 faithful. "Do not let yourselves be intimidated by a social environment that tries to exclude God, and in which power, possessions and pleasure are the principal criteria that guide existence," he said. He called on them to "live celibate" and to do away with "goods of the Earth."

The pope's busy day had begun in the Retiro park, where at 9am he heard confession from four pilgrims, all under 30. They had been chosen at random from volunteers who spoke German, Italian and French, "the languages spoken by the pope most fluently," according to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.

But at the Cuatro Vientos airfield, all kinds of languages were being spoken as the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims struggled to cope with the heat, which saw a total of 2,555 people seek medical attention in 24 hours.

"Do you speak English?" a nun asked another on Saturday afternoon. The answer was no, so they made themselves understood with gestures. Teresa Bulansorà, an 18-year-old girl from Czechoslovakia, was the object of the nuns' ire. "Don't you know that the pope is coming? You can't dress like that." The girl had long blonde hair, and was wearing a black bra and hotpants. She looked for a shirt in her backpack, while complaining about the heat. "I want to get a tan. It's really hot, and I hate all this dust."

The airfield at Cuatro Vientos was the worst place to be on Saturday for anyone who hates dry, dusty conditions. With temperatures reaching 39ºC at 5pm, it was hard to "keep the faith," as the World Youth Day hymn called on the young attendees to do.

Some of the pilgrims had arrived on foot, while others had waited in huge lines to catch a bus from Aluche, in the south of Madrid. They arrived thirsty, and took turns to fill up their bottles from the 15 bathroom areas.

Some of the pilgrims opted to jump the line, to speed things up. "Not even God is getting in here!" said one volunteer, who was guarding a bathroom.

Inside, a nun was filling up 25 bottles. Sister Gema Blanco was there with the same number of girls from a school in Valdemoro. "Finding Jesus Christ is all that we are here for," she said.

Guisseppe Donniacuo, an Italian volunteer, had a tough job ahead of him. He had to tell the pilgrims who were approaching the taps that there was no water left in that area. "It ran out four hours ago," he says.

Ragg Mamdouh, a 21-year-old Egyptian, has only found a place to sleep near the toilets. "Does that sound right to you?" he asked. "Today is the worst day of all," he complained. He went to WYD in Cologne in 2005 and in Sydney in 2008. On those occasions he slept on grass. "They knew how to organize the World Youth Day," he said. The next event will be held in Rio de Janeiro. "After this I'm not going to Brazil, no way," Mamdouh added, before taking a moment to think about it. "Well maybe I will, but I'll go as a tourist."