Why is WYD being organized in Lisbon in 2023?

From August 1 to August 6, 2023, all young people of the planet are invited to travel to Lisbon. he Pope Francisco This year’s International Youth Day was held in the Portuguese capital.

To find out how Lisbon was chosen as the host venue for WYD 2023, you have to travel back four years. Panama 2019: On the last block of that WYDAnd Cardinal Kevin Farrell, on the dispatched call, announced that Portugal would be the next country in which this meeting would take place.

This is by no means a random decision. It has been 37 years since the first World Youth Day. in 1986, John Paul II He invited the youth of the world to travel to Rome and spend – and celebrate – Palm Sunday with him. 300,000 accepted.

Since then it has been passed around the world. WYD has traveled to: Buenos Aires, Santiago de Compostela, Czestochowa, Denver, Manila, Paris, Rome, Toronto, Colon, Sydney, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Krakow and Panama. specific, Spain was the only country to host World Youth Day twice. in Santiago de Compostela in 1989 and in Madrid in 2011.

The next host is always announced at the last big celebration of the previous WYD’s Day. Since the first international event (Buenos Aires, 1987), the day alternates between continents and takes place every three years. Asia is the least welcoming, while in Africa it has not yet been possible to regulate it.

Each country submits a conservative nomination. The selection process is private, and is carried out by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, chaired by the Cardinal Stanislav Rylko. In order to qualify for candidacy it is necessary to have the clear support of the bishops’ conference in the country, but above all of the city’s archbishop chosen for the WYD, on whom much of the organizational work will fall.

Once a small group of countries has been selected, the Vatican Secretariat of State begins to intervene, which studies with the authorities of each country the feasibility of the event. If the outlook is positive, the pope is informed, and it is he who gives the go-ahead to continue planning, although the official decision is taken only two months before its announcement. Probably now, two months after the WYD Day in Lisbon, the meeting place of the world’s youth with the Holy Father is already known for the year 2026. The secret will be kept until August 6, until the young people get to know the mouth of Francisco where they will have to go to prepare for the journey.