Pope Francis arrived in Portugal for the World Youth Day Catholic festival, gathering with a million young people from around the world to address themes like ecology, social justice, and the war in Ukraine.
Pope Francis arrived in Lisbon on Wednesday to gather with a million youngsters worldwide at a major Catholic festival as the Church reflects on its future.
The 86-year-old pontiff underwent major abdominal surgery just two months ago, but that did not stop an event-packed 42nd trip abroad, with 11 speeches and around 20 meetings scheduled.
The Argentine Jesuit, whose direct and spontaneous style has proved highly popular with young people, is expected to address youth-focused themes, from ecology and social justice to the war in Ukraine.
“I will come back rejuvenated” to Rome, Francis told reporters in Italian aboard the plane.
The five-day event, called World Youth Day, comes as Francis attempts to galvanize young Catholics when secularism and priest pedophilia scandals cause some to abandon pews in Europe.
Organizers expect a million people from over 200 countries for the week of festive, cultural, and spiritual events, which opened Tuesday with a huge mass on top of a hill overlooking the city and the Tagus River.
Pilgrims carrying flags thronged the streets of the capital, where roads were hung with banners and posters featuring the event’s yellow, green, and red logo.
Francis has tentatively outlined potential reforms to the Church during his papacy, including on the place of LGBTQ people and women and whether priests can marry.
The pope, elected by his peers in 2013, will spend Wednesday meeting authorities and clergy in the country, where 80 percent of the 10 million inhabitants identify as Catholic.
He may talk about the clerical child sex abuse scandal in Portugal, which was the subject of a shock report published in February by a commission of independent experts.
It found “at least” 4,815 children had been sexually abused by clergy members in the country, mostly priests, since 1950, and the crimes were “systemically” hushed up by Portugal’s church hierarchy.
According to the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference and a local organizing committee, Francis will meet abuse victims privately, though it has not yet been included in the official program.
World Youth Day, created in 1986 by John Paul II, is the largest Catholic gathering in the world and will feature a wide range of events, including concerts and prayer sessions.
Initially scheduled for August 2022 but postponed because of the pandemic, this edition will be the fourth for Francis after Rio de Janeiro in 2013, Krakow in 2016, and Panama in 2019.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
