World Youth Day is an important occasion for young people to meet the face of Jesus, said the Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State in his conversation with the Vatican media on the eve of the trip to Lisbon. Francis in Fatima will be close to the sick and will invite people to pray for peace
Massimiliano Menichetti
The young people who have arrived in Lisbon are waiting for Francis to experience the 37th World Youth Day together, the first after the Covid-19 pandemic. Francis leaves for Portugal with the awareness that these “gatherings have great strength in themselves, even the strength to change life for some”. Thus Cardinal Parolin – shares with the Vatican media – the thoughts of the Holy Father that he will meet, listen to and speak to the young people who have come from all over the world for this great celebration of faith. The Holy Father will be in the Portuguese capital from 2 to 6 August, it will be his 42nd international trip precisely because of the WYD. The Vatican secretary of state also urges all those who cannot physically participate in the Days to “feel involved and fully protagonists” and explains that the Fatima stop was intended to be close to the sick, suffering and to pray for peace.
Your Eminence, Francesco will be with the youth of the WYD in Lisbon, Portugal. How is the Pope preparing for this meeting?
The Holy Father has many expectations for this upcoming World Youth Day in Lisbon, and in several video messages he has already invited young people to join him in this pilgrimage and to prepare for this ecclesial event, especially in prayer. Pray, the Pope, for all the young people who have already set off for Lisbon in these days, in the conviction, in the awareness that these meetings, these gatherings have great strength in themselves, even the strength to change, for some, the life. He himself recently said «we grow a lot on Days like this!». So the Holy Father is preparing for the next World Youth Day animated by great hope and is encouraging young people to have the same attitude towards all the moments he will live with them. A few weeks ago he also received, let’s say, the rucksack that the young pilgrims in Lisbon will then receive.
World Youth Days are a journey begun by St. John Paul II to respond to young people’s desire for encounter, peace and truth. A road of faith …
World Youth Days were born from an intuition of St. John Paul II. What does this world meeting mean in 2023?
I would say that John Paul II’s choice was undoubtedly a prophetic choice, a prophetic intuition, who said precisely that the Church wants to accompany young people, she wants to accompany in order to proclaim the Gospel to them in order to facilitate their encounter with Christ; that the Church must feel ever more committed, on a world level, in favor of young people, in favor of their anxieties and concerns, of their hopes and also to correspond to their expectations, always in this perspective of encountering Christ who is the Way , the Truth and the Life.
Therefore, this prophetic intuition seems to me to be manifest in all its relevance even in our day. Even today this prophetic intuition retains all its timeliness because it wants to reaffirm the Church’s commitment to the younger generations. Our world, which is undergoing a profound change, which has known the tragic experience of the Covid pandemic and which is experiencing multiple conflicts, today, all over the planet, it is more necessary than ever for young people to encounter the face of Jesus Christ , that they know his Word of salvation and become his disciples. And so, World Youth Day is once again proving to be an instrument and an important occasion for evangelization for the world of young people.
And there is also an aspect of universal fraternity, the fact that these young people, coming from different countries and therefore with different cultures, languages, lifestyles, can meet each other and exchange their experiences, exchange their gifts.
So we must be thankful if this experience has been carried forward for 40 years and if today it has a great chance to affect the lives of young people.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin
What can the Church learn from young people today?
I believe that the Church has before her the great challenge of the transmission of the faith, the transmission of the faith to the world in general. And I believe that in this task that the Church has, young people have something to tell us.
In today’s world, there are not a few who do not know Jesus Christ or perhaps have rejected him, so the number of those who have lost their faith and behave as if God did not exist is growing. The Pope has often spoken of this rupture in the transmission of the faith between generations of God’s people, explaining that it is somewhat normal for them to feel almost let down by the Church and cease to identify with the Catholic tradition. He increases the number of parents who do not baptize their children, who do not teach them to pray or who go to other faith communities (EG 70).
Here, this situation, which we must realize and which we must take into consideration, closely affects the existence of young people who carry within themselves questions, many doubts and many questions to which they are unable to answer. Therefore, what young people ask of the Church is that the Church renew its apostolic impetus and, without fear, undertake that path of pastoral and missionary conversion, so much desired by the Holy Father. It is necessary to be creative, it is necessary to find the courage and the right language to present Jesus Christ to today’s young people, in all his freshness, in all his timeliness, in such a way that even the young people of this time, who have sensitivity, styles, ways of doing things different from their peers of the past, can encounter it and live an experience of profound faith, and from this experience of profound faith then arises the desire to share it with all their peers. Therefore, an invitation not to remain calm within our walls but to truly become missionaries towards young people and involve them more in this journey of faith.
In view of the WYD, a new episode of Popecast: remote dialogue between Francis and a group of boys and girls who confide and tell each other. Among them a disabled transgender, …
There are many crises that the world is going through: wars, poverty, indifference, abandonment, selfishness, secularism… Can young people overcome these challenges?
Yes, and I believe that the indication comes to us precisely in the Message that the Holy Father addressed to young people for the WYD, where he presents the Madonna who, after the announcement, gets up quickly and goes (Lk 1:39) to her cousin Elizabeth, to help her in her needs. Here, then Our Lady shows us, she shows young people above all, the way of proximity and encounter. And I believe that young people, precisely when they travel these paths, these paths of closeness and encounter, have the ability in themselves to face and help solve and overcome the many challenges of our society.
I know, I have in mind the testimonies of many young people who, just like Our Lady, have not been afraid to abandon their comforts to be close to those who are in need, to those who are in need, they do not withdraw into themselves but they choose to put their talents, their gifts, their abilities to good use, what they have received for others and seek through choices, which may seem even rather limited choices, rather small but to make good grow in the world. Here, I believe that this is the contribution that young people can make to the great challenges of our time.
The stage of Fatima has been added to the WYD. What does this visit to the sanctuary of the Madonna mean?
It is an important visit where the Holy Father will meet young sick people and pray the Holy Rosary with them. An intense moment. I think the Pope wants to reiterate Our Lady’s message to the three shepherd children, when she appeared way back in 1917. They were words of consolation, they were words of hope in a world at war, not very different from the reality we are experiencing today. And Our Lady invited the little shepherds and through them the men to pray and to recite, in particular, the Holy Rosary with great confidence in order to obtain peace in the world.
So Pope Francis, who always carries in his heart the drama of those involved in conflicts, with this visit to the Shrine of Fatima during WYD, asks us not to lose heart and to persevere in prayer and in the specific prayer of the Holy Rosary.
The Secretary of State during the interview with the Vatican media
WYD can and must be a moment of listening. What do you think can arise from this meeting?
There it is the grace of God that works in the hearts of men and in the hearts of young people, but I would like to underline that there are three moments of encounter that seem very important to me. The first is listening to the Lord, to his call. A particularly significant moment in this sense is the Vigil, the celebration of the Vigil on Saturday evening, during which there is also a time of Eucharistic adoration. Encountering the Lord present in the Eucharist and letting oneself be encountered by him present in the Eucharist means being willing to listen to his Word as well: an encounter takes place that can really change the lives of many young people.
The second moment of listening is that of listening to the Pope. We know how much the Pope has the ability to get in touch and be in tune with young people, how capable he is of speaking to them, of giving them words that can shake them, encourage them encourage them to give their best. Even the meeting with the Successor of Peter, as a witness and teacher of the faith, can become a turning point in the life of young people.
And the third moment is that of meeting and listening to young people among themselves: every World Youth Day is also an occasion to meet, as I said, young people who come from other countries, to find out how their peers live their diversity and how we can enrich each other.
Father Roman Demush, a young Greek-Catholic priest, guides 500 young Ukrainians towards Lisbon: “We are not looking for condolences, but prayer and memory”, we go to the meeting “so as not …
What to say to the many young people who will not be in Lisbon, even if they wish to?
Yes, we know that while World Youth Day is taking place in Lisbon there will also be local events and it will be possible to follow the WYD through the social media. Those who cannot – for various reasons – go to Lisbon should, I invite them to unite spiritually with the Pope and with their peers who are in Portugal and to live, even if from afar, live this experience strongly by praying with them and for them, for those who are in Lisbon. And therefore they too must feel a living part of this WYD!
I would like to conclude by saying that, as the Holy Father said, World Youth Days are not “fireworks”, that is, moments of enthusiasm, perhaps of great enthusiasm which however remain closed in on themselves: they are not enough, they must be integrated in ordinary youth ministry. Therefore, before each WYD there must be a pastoral work of dioceses and parishes that are called to prepare the world gatherings, which then must be followed up. I believe that at this moment all young people, even those who cannot be physically present in Lisbon, must feel involved and fully protagonists.