Pope Francis will arrive in Lisbon on August 2 for World Youth Day, return to Rome on the 6th and visit Fatima on the 5th, the WYD Lisbon 2023 Foundation announced today.
“The WYD Lisbon 2023 Foundation is delighted to receive the news that Pope Francis’ visit to Portugal has been made official by Holy See. His Holiness’ visit to Lisbon is scheduled for August 2nd and his return to Rome will take place on August 6th,” the WYD organization announced in a statement.
According to the note, “according to the express wish of Pope Francis, the official program of the visit includes a trip to Fatima on August 5”.
This is Pope Francis’ second visit to Portugal after presiding over the festivities at the Fatima Sanctuary on May 13, 2017. Shepherds, Jacinta and Francisco Marto.
Francis is the fourth Pope to visit Portugal, after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1982, 1991 and 2000, and Benedict XVI in 2010.
Lisbon is the city chosen by Pope Francis for the next edition of World Youth Day, which will take place this year between August 1 and 6, with the main festivities taking place on the riverside, north of Parque das Nazis. of Tagus on land in the municipalities of Lisbon and Lures.
WYD was born at the initiative of Pope John Paul II after the success of the meeting promoted by the International Youth Year in Rome in 1985.
The first edition took place in Rome in 1986, already in Buenos Aires (1987), Santiago de Compostela (1989), Cestozova (1991), Denver (1993), Manila (1995), Paris (1997), Rome (2000), Toronto (2002). , Cologne (2005), Sydney (2008), Madrid (2011), Rio de Janeiro (2013), Krakow (2016) and Panama (2019).
This year’s edition, which will be closed by the Pope, was initially planned for 2022, but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pope Francis will be the first to register at WMJLisboa2023 at the Vatican on October 23, 2022, after the Angelus celebration. The gesture marked the start of a worldwide registration for a world meeting of young people with the Pope.
So far, more than half a million youth have started the registration process.
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