The Pope Francisco registered today as a “pilgrim” for the World Youth Day (WYD) that will take place in Lisbon in August 2023 and encouraged the young people of the world to do so.
“Dear young people, I invite you to sign up for this meeting in which, after a long period of distance, we will rediscover the joy in the fraternal embrace between peoples and generations that we need so much,” he said after the Angelus, leaning out the window of the Apostolic Palace together with three young Portuguese.
Online registration for WYD opens this Sunday and, for this reason, Francisco registered as a “pilgrim” from the window, using the tablet of one of the boys who accompanied him.
In April 2020 Francis announced his decision to postpone this massive event to August 2023 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The celebration of WYD in Portugal was announced in January 2019 at the closing of this macro-event in Panama, the last country to host it and to which the Argentine pope attended.
This would be the second time that Francis has come to Portugal, after the trip he made in May 2017 to visit the sanctuary of Fatima for the centenary of the apparitions.
WYD, instituted by John Paul II in 1985, is one of the great events of the Church, with which young people are given prominence, bringing them together every year at the diocesan level or every two or three years with international pilgrimages to a country.
