Cologne, Germany - Gerrit Meents, 25, from Germany, loved the sea of winking candles, the music from around the world, the communion with hundreds of thousands of young Roman Catholics like himself at a vigil on Saturday night in a mushy field here. Even the cold overnight outside, he said, "wasn't too bad."
What did not touch him deeply was the speech of his new pope, Benedict XVI. "Actually it didn't really have an impact on me," he said, still in his sleeping bag on Sunday morning, waiting for the huge culminating Mass of World Youth Day. "I think he's still learning how to address young people. As we were saying yesterday, half a year ago he was just running around Rome, and now he's pope.
"So he's still learning," he added, "and that's all right."
The crowds are still huge. They screamed out "Benedetto!" with fervor when he passed through perhaps a million people in the popemobile before Mass on Sunday morning.
The new pope, 78, seemed not only to enjoy himself but also to make strides on this first and crucial trip abroad in defining his papacy, especially the church's stands on terrorism and dialogue among religions.
But the emotional charge that Catholics became accustomed to from 26 years of Pope John Paul II, scores of young people said, was less evident in this less extroverted, more cerebral pope.
"He's so new, I don't think we have much of an insight on him so far," said Mallory Miles, 18, who just graduated from high school in Laredo, Tex. "But I'm sure it will come out."
She said she thought World Youth Day, founded by John Paul in 1984, would still attract crowds (and Benedict announced on Sunday that the next World Youth Day would take place in Sydney in 2008). But she said that from what she had seen of him so far, it might be "because the pope is there, not Benedict himself."
Church officials are blunt in saying that few humans could match John Paul for stage presence, and perhaps particularly not the man cardinals chose as his successor in April: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a bookish, piano-playing, behind-the-scenes former defender of the faith.
While John Paul would reminisce about his soccer buddies or a favorite bakery on trips to his native Poland, Benedict said little publicly on this trip about growing up, teaching or being a cardinal in Germany (though he wrote a memoir about it, "Milestones"). While John Paul enjoyed whipping up the faithful, Benedict stuck largely to his scripts, which were unfailingly graceful, erudite and clear, but not show-stoppers.
Church officials do not seem especially worried about the difference. Some, in fact, after 26 years of the almost defiantly personal John Paul, seem to prefer a pope whose style accents more the office than the man.
Still, they are aware that young Catholics have felt the difference on this first trip. "There were Twelve Apostles and each of them had his characteristics," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, noting that each of the 264 popes had also been different.
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the long-time spokesman for John Paul and now for Benedict, said: "There are many ways of communicating. There is not just one way."
Indeed, Benedict, a highly regarded theologian, has been crystal clear: In a landmark meeting with Muslims on Saturday, he told them that while better relations between Christians and Muslims were essential to defeat terrorism, he implied, too, that Muslims bore much responsibility on their own. He has spoken of the imperfections of the church, but also the strength and universality of Catholicism as a world religion.
In messages directed specifically at young people, he reached out to nonbelievers, but also laid out what he believes is demanded of a good Catholic.
"It is good that today, in many cultures, Sunday is a free day, and it is often combined with Saturday so as to constitute a weekend of free time," he told the sprawling, flag-waving crowd that World Youth Day organizers said reached a million people in a field on the outskirts of Cologne.
"Yet this free time is empty if God is not present," he said, in an address he delivered in five languages. "Sometimes our initial impression is that having to include time for Mass on a Sunday is rather inconvenient. But if you make the effort, you will realize that this is what gives a proper focus to your free time."
He also warned of believing in God in too personal a way.
"If it is pushed too far, religion becomes almost a consumer product," he said. "Religion constructed on a 'do-it-yourself' basis cannot ultimately help us."
If his public appearances were not electrifying, nearly everyone who met with him in private spoke of his warmth and humility.
In a lunch on Friday with 12 young people, some trembling, he put them at ease waving away a trout and said he wanted the vegetable omelet that everyone else was eating.
The young people from all around the world said the pope asked them questions about themselves, and knew a surprising amount about their countries, including Congo and Chile. As the man who knew the most languages, in a room where not every spoke the same ones, the successor of St. Peter even did a little translating.
"It was very impressive for me to see that this was primarily a listening pope," said Aleksander Pavkovic, 25, from Slovenia.
As the pope flew home to Rome on Sunday after this four-day trip, one remaining question seemed to be whether Benedict's message, if not his stage presence, would have continuing appeal to young people.
As with John Paul, who often spoke to young people about abstaining from sex, not everyone here agrees on specific issues with Benedict, known for his conservative views during his years as defender of the faith. Some Africans, for example, disagreed with the church position against condom use, a ban even in countries where the prevalence of AIDS is high.
"My own opinion is that condoms are a way to be safe because AIDS makes problems in Africa," said Divingu Dimelvic, 25, a student from Gabon. "But with time, maybe the position of the pope will change."
At least one of Benedict's favorite topics - though he did not discuss it in Cologne - had no resonance with two young women from Houston.
"Relativism - what do you mean by that?" asked Joni Magill, 18.
When it was explained that Benedict has often condemned the notion that all religious beliefs are equal, her friend, 19, said: "We try not to judge others," said the friend, who did not give her name.
For many, though, Benedict's appeal lay in two central facts: that he is conservative and that he is following very much the same program as John Paul, who emphasized the role of youth in the church.
Melizza Mina, 29, a teacher from the Philippines who has attended four World Youth Day festivals, said that young people especially needed to hear a strict message.
"We have more issues about sex, contraceptives," she said. "So this is the right time for him to address young people about their responsibility to be a role model to others."