By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service
[Vatican City – CNS] – In a world suffering from “diseases of the soul,” like pride, hatred and violence, the young people who traveled to Portugal for World Youth Day showed that another way of living and interacting is possible, Pope Francis said.
World Youth Day was not a vacation, but “an encounter with the living Christ in the Church. The young people went to encounter Christ,” the pope said Aug. 9 at his weekly general audience.
Restarting the Wednesday appointments after a month-long summer break, Pope Francis used his main audience talk to share some reflections on his trip Aug. 2-6 to Fátima and Lisbon for World Youth Day, an event that saw 1.5 million people gather for a prayer vigil and for Mass (see article, below).
In addition to the large events with young people from around the world, the pope said he had an opportunity for smaller, more intimate meetings, including with a group of young people from Ukraine, “who shared stories that were painful” about their lives and the losses they have endured since Russia launched a full-scale war on their country.
“While in Ukraine and other places in the world there is fighting, and while in certain hidden halls war is planned — this is awful, isn’t it, wars are planned,” he said, “World Youth Day showed everyone that another world is possible: a world of brothers and sisters, where the flags of all peoples fly together, next to each other, without hatred, without fear, without closing up, without weapons!”
“The message of the young people was clear: will the ‘great of the earth’ listen to it, I wonder, to this youthful enthusiasm that wants peace?” the pope asked.
“It is a parable for our time, and even today Jesus says: ‘He who has ears, let him hear! He who has eyes, let him look!’ We hope the whole world listens to this World Youth Day and sees the beauty of these youth moving forward.”
Pope Francis, who did not read a planned prayer for peace in Ukraine while at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, told people at the audience, “I prayed that God would heal the world of the diseases of the soul: pride, lies, enmity, violence — these are diseases of the soul, and the world is sick with these diseases.”
And, he said, while at the shrine, “we renewed the consecration of ourselves, of Europe, of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” he said. “I prayed for peace because there are many wars in many parts of the world.”
Pope Francis greets children with various illnesses and physical challenges after praying the rosary in the Chapel of Apparitions at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima in Fatima, Portugal, August 5, 2023. (Photo by Lola Gomez, Catholic News Service)
Addressing Polish speakers at the audience, Pope Francis offered his blessing to the thousands of people making the traditional August pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Jasna Góra in Czestochowa.
“I entrust you with a desire I have in my heart: the desire for peace in the world,” he told the pilgrims. “Present it to the one who is the Queen of Peace. Ask for this priceless gift, especially for the dear and tormented Ukraine.”
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© OSV News / Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. 2023 – from CNS Vatican bureau, used with permission
Pope Francis waves to the crowd at the end of the closing Mass for World Youth Day at Tejo Park in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 6, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Pope calls for inclusive church while in Portugal for WYD
Announces next World Day will be in Seoul, South Korea in 2027
By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service
[Lisbon, Portugal – CNS] – Pope Francis asked the 1.5 million young people who attended World Youth Day to take “what God has sown into your hearts” back to their home countries and build a joyful church that is open to all.
Young pilgrims interviewed by Catholic News Service during World Youth Day constantly returned to the pope’s main point during the official welcome ceremony for World Youth Day Aug. 3: in the church there is room for “everyone, everyone, everyone.”
Pope Francis asked the jubilant crowd of flag-waving young people to repeat the refrain with him in Lisbon’s Eduardo VII Park and shouts of “todos, todos, todos” — “everyone” in Spanish and Portuguese — spread throughout the crowd.
As he did often during the trip, the pope solicited engagement from the crowd, asking them to repeat after him or consider in silence a question he posed.
Young people pray while Pope Francis celebrates Mass for World Youth Day at Tejo Park in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 6, 2023. (Photo by Lola Gomez, Catholic News Service)
It was during his meeting Aug. 2, 2023 with Portuguese bishops, priests, religious and pastoral workers that the pope first issued his “todos” message about including everyone.
“Please, let us not convert the Church into a customs office” where only the “just,” “good,” and “properly married” can enter while leaving everyone else outside, he said.
“No. The Church is not that,” he said, rather it is a place for “righteous and sinners, good and bad, everyone, everyone, everyone.”
Asked during his in-flight news conference Aug. 6 how the church can be for everyone when women and gay people are excluded from some sacraments, Pope Francis said that “the church is open to all, but then there is legislation that regulates life inside the Church.”
“This does not mean that (the Church) is closed. Each person encounters God by their own way, inside the church, and the church is mother and guides each one by their own path,” he responded.
At 86 years old, Pope Francis showed no sign of slowing down for the 42nd international trip of his pontificate, which he jokingly told journalists on the flight to Lisbon will “make me young again.”
The pope’s packed agenda had three to four official events per day, and he added private meetings with several groups and individuals at the Vatican nunciature in Lisbon where he was staying. Among them was a group of abuse survivors who met with the pope for over an hour Aug. 2, during which they “dialogued about this plague” of abuse, the pope said.
Pope Francis and an international group of young people look out over an estimated 1.5 million people who came to the World Youth Day prayer vigil at Tejo Park in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 5, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
The crowd waits for Pope Francis’ arrival to lead the World Youth Day prayer vigil with young people at Tejo Park in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 5, 2023. (Photo by Lola Gomez, Catholic News Service)
Young people from South Korea pray during Communion at Pope Francis’ closing Mass for World Youth Day at Tejo Park in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 6, 2023. At the end of Mass, the pope announced the next World Youth Day would take place in 2027 in Seoul. (Photo by Lola Gomez, Catholic News Service)
The pope celebrated Mass with 1.5 million young people sprawled across Lisbon’s riverside Tejo Park Aug. 6 and told them not to be afraid of pursuing their great dreams to change the world.
In addition to listening the testimonies of young people and fielding questions from some of them during public events, Pope Francis had a chance for more direct interactions with several young people during the trip. He heard the confessions of three pilgrims and ate lunch with a group of 10 young people Aug. 4.
The pope later shared that he spoke to one young man who had previously considered taking his own life and said youth suicide is a problem today, noting the challenge is especially prevalent in places where universities and the job market are very demanding.
After the closing Mass, the pope announced that Seoul, South Korea, would be the location for the next World Youth Day in 2027, drawing great applause from the South Korean delegations scattered throughout the crowd.
The previous morning, Pope Francis visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, where he again put aside his prepared remarks and spoke off the cuff, focusing on Mary and skipping over an expected prayer for peace in the world.
He later said that “I prayed to Our Lady, and I prayed for peace” before a statue of Our Lady of Fátima, but “I did not advertise.”
In the shrine’s Chapel of the Apparitions, marking the exact spot where the three Portuguese children claimed to see Mary in 1917, he said the open-air chapel “is like a beautiful image of the church, welcoming, without doors, so that all can enter.”
Pope Francis answers questions from journalists aboard his flight back to Rome from Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 6, 2023, after his participation in World Youth Day. (Photo by Lola Gomez, Catholic News Service)
During the Aug. 6 press conference, Pope Francis also brushed off concerns about eyesight issues that arose after he joked that his glasses “aren’t working” at one of his events and continued to largely improvise his remarks for the rest of his trip. And he said his health and recovery from abdominal surgery in June is “going well.”
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© OSV News / Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. 2023 – from CNS Vatican bureau, used with permission