More than half a million young people from 146 countries are set to arrive in Rome on Monday for the start of the weeklong Jubilee of Youth, which will include a special Jubilee dedicated to Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers. Source: OSV News.
While 68 per cent of attendees will be from Europe, young people will be coming from four other continents and from war zones and areas of serious conflict, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, a pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, said on Wednesday.
“Essentially, this moment of celebration and joy also aims to embrace all young people around the world, indicating that it will be a genuine moment of peace and peace-building in the world,” he said at a Vatican news conference.
“I am thinking in particular of the Christian young people of Ukraine, the Middle East, Syria, Gaza and Iran,” Lamberto Giannini, Rome’s prefect, who coordinates maintaining law and order in the city, said.
The seven-day event during the Jubilee of hope will be “in communion with all of them, because it is for them above all that hope is offered today, and not just any hope, but as we have been taught, the hope that does not disappoint,” he said.
The Vatican news conference featured representatives of the Italian national, regional and local governments, as well as police and civil protection authorities.
They provided many details about what is slated to be the largest of all the Jubilee celebrations scheduled for the Holy Year, which has drawn nearly 17 million people so far, the archbishop said.
The high points will be walking through the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica, and the August 2 evening prayer vigil and August 3 Mass with Pope Leo XIV in Rome’s Tor Vergata residential neighbourhood, which lies about 13 kilometres southeast of the city centre.
The week will also feature about 70 cultural, artistic and spiritual events – organised by multiple bishops’ conferences and Catholic groups and associations – throughout the city, including the exposition of the relics of Blesseds Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis for veneration.
There will be an opportunity on August 1 for participants to receive the sacrament of Reconciliation at Rome’s Circus Maximus, where more than 1000 priests will take turns throughout the day offering confession in multiple languages, Archbishop Fisichella said.
FULL STORY
Jubilee of Youth chance to celebrate hope, fraternity in world at war, panel says (By Carol Glatz, OSV News)
