MANILA (AFP) - Philippine Catholic priests are appealing to over 100 pilgrims who attended last month's World Youth Day in Spain to come home, fearing they used the festival as a ruse to live abroad illegally.
Pope Benedict XVI brought the event in Madrid to a close on Aug 21, but fewer than 300 of the 427 Filipino delegates have returned, said Father Noel Osial, head of Manila's Don Bosco Catholic congregation.
'There are really some who are using this World Youth Day as an avenue (for illegal immigration) because they have relatives there already,' the rector told AFP.
'It is immoral because that is not what we intended.' Father Osial said that a number of Filipino pilgrims had also used the World Youth Day festivals in Germany in 2005 and Canada in 2002 to trick the Catholic church into helping them get visas abroad and then stay overseas illegally.
