KEY POINTS:
The Hungry Mile has never seen anything like this.
The former Millers Point dockland given its foreboding nickname during the Great Depression of the 1920s yesterday afternoon thundered with the cheers of more than 150,000 young Catholics as Pope Benedict XVI berthed in a luxury harbour cruise boat.
Around the Opera House and Circular Quay, and on high points between Farm Cove and Walsh Bay, tens of thousands more thronged to watch the MV Sydney 2000 pass by with the Pope on the upper deck and its three lower decks packed with 270 pilgrims and officials.
In the wake of the 63m MV Sydney 2000, the Papal flag streaming from its masts, a flotilla of a dozen other charter boats carried hundreds more selected pilgrims, support staff and media, forcing for the first time the complete suspension of harbour tours.
On shore, the roar of his greeting, overlaid by a mass choir, was deafening. And beyond the Hungry Mile - now the site of another massive redevelopment on east Darling Harbour - hundreds of thousands lined the streets of downtown Sydney as the Popemobile wove its way to St Mary's Cathedral, where Pope Benedict is now staying.
For sisters Catherine and Marianne Gillies, who led a group of 40 pilgrims from Gisborne, this was the culmination of a day that had begun early in the distant western suburb of Mt Pritchard with morning Catechesis, followed by mass and a long journey by bus and train into the city.
With more than 100,000 pilgrims packing into Barangaroo, Catherine Gillies was resigned to the possibility that she might miss seeing the Pope: "But it will still be awesome to be in his presence ... It's just remarkable to see the impact on the young people."
Two other Kiwis were guaranteed a close encounter. Cameron Surrey, an Auckland seminarian, crossed the harbour aboard the Papal boat, while Christchurch youth worker Clare Dooley was preparing herself for lunch with Pope Benedict today.
"I'm getting a bit nervous about it all as it gets closer," she said.
The Pope had also been up early, leaving his quarters at St Mary's Cathedral before 9am for his official welcome by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Governor-General Michael Jeffery.
Describing him as an apostle of peace and a voice of hope, Rudd said the Pope was welcome in Australia as a guest of the nation's wider Christian community and of the general Australian community at large.
He also said he had been asked by Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders to extend a special greeting from indigenous peoples.
In his address, the Pope said WYD had filled him with confidence for the future of both the church and the world, and praised Rudd's "courageous" decision to acknowledge past injustices against indigenous Australians and to work toward reconciliation based on mutual respect.
"This example of reconciliation offers hope to peoples all over the world who long to see their rights affirmed and their contribution to society acknowledged and promoted," he said.
As he spoke, the streets radiating out from Government House were already beginning to fill with people hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pope, lining vantage points while helicopters clattered overhead and police and troops patrolled.
Karin and Jurgen Muller, a Bavarian flag fluttering from a backpack, were in Sydney for their third sighting of the Pope, after seeing him at the last WYD in Cologne, Germany, and in Rome.
Travelling from the town of Welden, near Munich, Karin Muller said this may not be as exciting as the first time - "but it's still very good".
Brothers Mauricio, 27, and Lizandro, 28, Cortes, in sombrero and Mexican flag , still had trouble believing they were about to see the Pope for the first time, on the opposite side of the world.
"We're very excited to be here," Mauricio Cortes said. "It's incredible to be very far away from our country and see him."
Scott Weddell, a 20-year-old from San Bernardino in the United States, is travelling with a group of 14 other Californians, but is heading to Barangaroo with Sydneysider Rob Sebastian, 21, after the pair met in the street.
Weddell said he could not wait to see a Pope he regarded as an inspiration. For Sebastian, it was a rare opportunity to explore the meaning of Christianity: "This probably happens here once in a blue moon, so I guess this is the blue moon."
All morning, the crowds thickened as pilgrims poured down George St and through The Rocks to Barangaroo, singing, clapping, waving flags and calling to each other.
A group of young Australians zipped by on skateboards.
Behind them, about 50 Americans waved their flag, chanting "Jesus" and holding signs offering free hugs.
In their wake were a similar number of Australians, five abreast down car-free George Street, singing and marching to the beat of tambourines.
In The Rocks, an ambulance, horn blaring, nudged its way through drum-beating Africans and guitar-bearing Chileans; a priest in black clerical robes and wide-brimmed hat strode past with a vivid metallic blue guitar strung around his neck; and a phalanx of women pranced behind a banner declaring "Pope of Hope" and, on its reverse, "Benedict, we're with you."
The parade paused for a moment to allow two gays, arms affectionately around each other, to pass through.
Down the road, business was slow for the lady with the "Help Beat Aids" donation bucket.
And the opposition was out in force. Muslims distributed tracts warning readers away from the "dishonesty of interfaith dialogue" - one such meeting was just concluding in nearby Darling Harbour - and urging pilgrims to turn to Allah.
Elsewhere, rival evangelists were handing out a comic book called "Last Rites" attacking Catholic beliefs and warning that faith in Rome was a guaranteed ticket to hell.
But with blue skies, T-shirt temperatures and the Pope in town, nothing was going to cloud the pilgrims' day.
MacKILLOP JUST ONE MIRACLE AWAY FROM BEING CANONISED
It's still to be confirmed, but the Sisters of St Joseph took new hope from a meeting with the Pope that Australia will one day have its first saint.
The founder of the order of Australian nuns, Blessed Mother Mary MacKillop, must be documented as performing one more miracle before she is confirmed as a saint.
So when Pope Benedict XVI prayed at Blessed Mary's shrine in Sydney yesterday, the leader of the Sisters of St Joseph, Sister Anne Derwin, seized the chance to press the order's case.
She told him: "Our church and the people of Australia are looking forward to the day when she is canonised.
"He smiled and said 'She will be canonised. We are waiting for the miracle'," Sister Anne recalled later.
It was a commitment repeated when Sister Anne presented the Pope with a bronze bust of a smiling Blessed Mary. The Pope in turn presented the order with a statue of St Joseph, during his brief visit to the Mary MacKillop memorial chapel in North Sydney.
Mary MacKillop, who was born in Victoria in 1842, founded the Sisters of St Joseph in 1866.
In 1883, she sent nuns across the Tasman, where they set up the New Zealand province of the order in Temuka which she visited in 1894.
There were three subsequent visits. On the last, in 1902, she went to Rotorua to treat her rheumatism. However, she suffered a stroke while there and returned home as an invalid.
She died in North Sydney in 1909.
She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in January 1995, but remains one documented miracle away from becoming Australia's first saint.
- AAP
