COLOGNE, Germany (CNS): World Youth Day organisers are backing off a commitment to remove the artificial mound where Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany last August, saying they would like the site to become a memorial.
However, an environmental organisation wants the 10-metre-high “Pope’s Hill” removed and said use of the land for large events would disrupt its use “for quiet recreation on a natural site”.
The artificial mound, built with dirt from different countries, was where Pope Benedict celebrated the concluding Mass for a million World Youth Day pilgrims.
Last June World Youth Day officials published a 28-page environmental statement detailing the event’s direct and indirect environmental impact.
However, World Youth Day chief executive officer Hermann-Josef Johanns said it would cost about $1 million dollars just to remove the 160,000-tonne mound.
Local and regional politicians have said they support keeping the mound, although no one has offered money for maintaining it.
Dirk Jansen, an activist with Friends of the Earth, an organisation that lobbies for environmental issues, said the mound already was showing signs of erosion and needed maintenance.
He said planning conditions for the removal of the mound had to be taken seriously.
