The first World Youth Day to be hosted in a country where Christians are a minority will seek to instill young people with the courage to share the Gospel while fostering interreligious dialogue, organizers of the event said.
Although he had an aide read his prepared talk to the people who had organized World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, Pope Francis had a few memories and questions he wanted to share himself. “Thank you, thank you for what you have done,” he told the group Nov. 30. “Thank you for all you set up so that this World Youth Day could be what it was: a strong point of evangelization, joy and youthful expression!”
Embrace God’s unconditional love and live in a way that is based on and radiates hope, Pope Francis told Catholic young people.
Before 200,000 pilgrims at Fátima, many of them with tears in their eyes, Pope Francis called for a new Marian devotional title — “Our Lady in a Hurry” — to describe how Mary hastens to care for all her children.
Before a sea of waving flags representing countries large and small from across the globe, Pope Francis told some 500,000 singing, shouting and swaying young people that God has called each person to him by name, not their social media handle. “You are not here by mistake,” he told the mass of people in Lisbon’s Eduardo VII Park Aug. 3 for the welcome ceremony for World Youth Day. “You, you, you, over there, all of us, me, we were all called by our names.”
This summer Catholics around the world are invited to participate in two exciting, inter-related events in the life of the church. The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly will take place July 23, and World Youth Day is being celebrated in Lisbon, Portugal during the first week of August.
With a green light from his doctor, Pope Francis has assured young people that he will be with them in Portugal for World Youth Day despite his recent surgery.
As the U.S. Catholic bishops heard at their spring assembly’s June 16 plenary session in Orlando, with support, open hearts and ears, and encouragement, World Youth Day 2023 can be not just a singular event, but become a movement to uplift the church for years and generations to come.
Pope Francis will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima during his trip to Portugal for World Youth Day 2023, the Vatican said.
World Youth Day is an antidote against indifference, isolation and lethargy, Pope Francis said. Since World Youth Days were established by St. John Paul II in 1985, “they have involved, moved, stirred and challenged generations of women and men,” he said in the preface of a new book, “A Long Journey to Lisbon,” by Aura Miguel, a Portuguese journalist for Rádio Renascença. Vatican News published the preface May 2.