DUSHANBE (UCAN) -- It's a long shot. Anton Petrov reckons he would have to stash the equivalent of US$3 a day under his mattress from now until July 2008 to pay for his trip to World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia.

But he admits that saving US$3 a day as a college student in Tajikistan, where the average monthly wage is US$100, is perhaps an impossible mission.

"I don't know whether I will go to Sydney or not," said Petrov, sitting in the four-bedroom apartment he shares with his parents near St. Joseph Church in Dushanbe. "It depends on my studies, money and family."

World Youth Day and the possibility of visiting Australia have a strong pull in a country where More than 80 percent of the 250 Catholics are under the age of 30. But the Tajik Church is one of the poorest Churches in Asia as well as one of the smallest.

Petrov, 22, is a familiar face to St. Joseph parishioners. He assists the Argentine Incarnate Word priests here with their work, and is a leading light in the small but vibrant group of young Catholics that meet regularly at the church, located in a quiet Dushanbe suburb.

He told UCA News that participating in the World Youth Day, which the late Pope John Paul II started in 1984, is "really an unforgettable moment in the religious life of any Catholic." And he is speaking from experience.

Petrov, 19-year-old student Maria Petrova and six other young people represented Tajikistan at the international celebration of World Youth Day 2005 last October in Cologne, Germany, which Pope Benedict XVI attended.

Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, apostolic nuncio to Tajikistan, helped to finance that trip, it looks like they have to find their own funding now.

Petrov and Petrova were also in Rome April 6-9 for From Cologne to Sydney, a meeting of more than 200 young people from different countries, to analyze the 2005 celebration and plan for the upcoming one in Sydney. The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Laity paid for the expenses of the participants.

Petrov was encouraged by his reception in Rome. "I was pleased to feel myself a member of the universal Church, to give my thoughts and share my religious experience," he told UCA News. "People were interested in me and our community, regardless of the fact that we are relatively small."

Father Carlos Avila, head of the sui iuris (self-governing) mission of Tajikistan, sees the World Youth Day "pilgrimage" as very valuable for Catholic youths here and the whole local Church.

Young Tajik Catholics, "who make up a small minority in Tajikistan and who live among non-Christians," can discover how large the Catholic Church is, "and also share about the local Church in their country," he told UCA News.

"Our youths could meet young Catholics who experience almost the same minority status" of Catholics in Tajikistan, he said.

Father Avila added that because of limited funding, his young parishioners have been unable to meet up with other young Asian Catholics when meetings were held elsewhere in the continent.

About 95 percent of the 6.5 million population of Tajikistan are Muslims and 3 percent are Russian Orthodox Church members.

Each week, Catholic youths of St. Joseph Parish meet to reflect on problems of modern society, their spiritual life and other topics. Recently, from June 19 to 23, they attended a retreat.

What are the chances that some of them will go to Sydney? Father Avila is hopeful, while Petrov is not sure. Petrova sees the odds, at least for her, as not good. "It is too expensive for me," she said. "I probably won't go."

Catholicism is relatively new to Tajikistan, having arrived with ethnic German Catholics who were deported to the region by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin during World War II. In the 1960s and 1970s, according to Church data, about 30,000 ethnic Germans lived in Tajikistan, and many of them were Catholics. But the Catholic community virtually disappeared following the breakup of the Soviet Union and Tajikistan's independence, in 1991. The 1992-1995 civil war between the government and Muslim guerrillas hastened the exodus. Now most of the Catholics are ethnic Russians, like Petrov, Tajiks and Armenians.

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