Pope Benedict texted thousands of young pilgrims in Australia yesterday, urging them to renew their faith as they gathered for the Catholic Church's largest youth festival.

Hymns and chants of halleluja filled Sydney's streets as hundreds of thousands of young Catholics from around the world gathered for the opening Mass of World Youth Day.

"Young friend, God and his people expect much from u because u have within you the Fathers supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus - BXVI," read the first of the Pope's daily text messages which will be sent out during World Youth Day.

Using "u" instead of "you" is a popular shortcut among youth around the world, who send millions of text, or SMS, messages daily.

Pope Benedict arrived in Sydney on Sunday and will attend World Youth Day events from today, culminating in a Sunday Mass before an estimated 300,000 pilgrims.

The Pope has said he will apologise to Australian victims of sexual abuse in the Church. Broken Rites, which represents abuse victims, has a list of 107 convictions for church abuse, but says there may be thousands more victims as only a few go to court.

Police have closed some 300 roads and erected concrete and wire security fences across the central business district, in a security operation not seen since the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Sydney is treating World Youth Day as bigger than the Olympics, urging workers to take holidays. Organisers estimate the event will earn the city up to A$200 million.

But the Catholic church hopes the biggest windfall will be religious in a country where church attendances are falling.

Despite being led by the oldest Pope elected, the church believes the 81-year-old Pontif can still engage with young people.

"We're a very secular society in Australia, we're very materialistic and I think we've lost something in all of that," said World Youth Day ambassador John Herron.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.