ROME (AP) — Pope Francis will travel to Portugal in the first week of August for World Youth Day, stopping at the popular sanctuary of Fatima, the Vatican said Monday.
The visit between August 2 and 6 is longer than originally planned and covers almost the entire week of the great Catholic celebration, which was inaugurated by Pope Saint John Paul II to try to revive the participation of young people in the faith.
Francisco will stay in Lisbon for most of the trip, although he will take a day trip to Fátima on August 5. Francisco traveled to the place in 2017 for the 100th anniversary of one of the most striking events of the Catholic Church in the 20th century: the visions of the Virgin Mary recounted by three shepherd children and the “secrets” that she entrusted to them.
Francis’ visit is this time taking place during the war in Ukraine, prompting comparisons to the time the original visions were reported, with Europe engulfed in World War I.
The Portuguese Catholic Church is addressing its legacy of clerical sexual abuse. An independent report this year concluded that more than 4,800 people may have been victims of abuse since 1950. Leading members of the Portuguese church had previously claimed only a handful of cases had occurred.
There was no indication whether Francis would meet with victims, as he has done on several occasions elsewhere.
The Portuguese Bishops’ Conference expressed its “enormous joy” at the Vatican’s announcement of Francis’ visit, saying hundreds of thousands of young people from around the world were expected to flock to Lisbon. The event was originally organized in 2022, but was postponed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The last World Youth Day was celebrated in 2019 in Panama.
“We trust that the presence of Pope Francis among us, and that it includes a significant pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Fatima, offers a strong sense of renewal and grace for the Church in Portugal,” the Bishops’ Conference said in a statement.
Francis’ other trip scheduled for this year would be a quick visit to Marseille, France, on September 23 to address a meeting of Mediterranean bishops. A trip proposal to Mongolia that would begin at the end of August is also being studied.