World Youth Day 2023 has come to a close.
It was full of joy, enthusiasm, youth, vibrancy, faith and self confidence.
The choice of Lisbon for the event was an inspired one, close to Fatima, beautifully positioned in one of Western Europe’s most humbly impressive and historic cities. This historical element cannot be overlooked in the modern context, especially for pilgrims exposed to black legends about the church. Some international visitors may have had no concept of the fact that Portugal was once ruled by Muslims for centuries before gloriously freeing itself. Others may understand why there are statues to individuals such as Vasco De Gama, who helped to bring the life of Christ to new lands. The message of Fatima also becomes more apparent in this context, Fatima was not only the name of Muhammad’s daughter. Fulton Sheen once wrote:
The Muslims occupied Portugal for centuries. At the time when they were finally driven out, the last Muslim chief had a beautiful daughter by the name of Fatima. A Catholic boy fell in love with her, and for him she not only stayed behind when the Muslims left but even embraced the Faith. The young husband was so much in love with her that he changed the name of the town where he lived to Fatima. Thus, the very place where Our Lady appeared in 1917 bears a historical connection to Fatima the daughter of Mohammed
The numbers of people from the United States of America at World Youth Day reached at least 30,000. In a culture where they have seen people tearing down statues of Christopher Columbus, Junipero Serra and others, this history lesson is for them also. It is a history lesson too for those from Central and South America who have had their history twisted against Catholics. Those currently suffering from Muslim persecution in Iraq, Nigeria and elsewhere would have also been exposed to this message as would those from the UK and France and other countries that have tried to blame the church in lieu of self criticism for their own colonialism.
Those pilgrims who arrived early were able to visit Jerónimos Monastery containing the tomb of Vasco De Gama, others will have been able to pray in the company of relics from Pope John Paul II, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Blessed Carlo Acutis amongst others. Confessions, Mass and Adoration were available throughout the city, though many may have facilitated these within their own groups.
On Tuesday, the welcoming Mass took place in the centre of the city at Dom Manuel Clemente.
We attended the gathering of US Pilgrims on Tuesday evening. It was particularly impressive to see the enthusiasm of the US Catholics, their sincerity and their seriousness. Bishop Robert Barron gave a rousing talk. This video really captures the beauty of the event.
Bishop Barron had gathered with French pilgrims the previous day, 40,000 of them packed to hear him speak. The event also saw a video message from France’s record goalscorer in football, Olivier Giroud. The images are inspiring, a complete culture shock to those of us accustomed to reading about the crisis in the French church. The enthusiasm seems to have left a real impression on Barron.
Tuesday evening’s opening Mass for World Youth Day was particularly reverent, with some of the most impressive music you would ever be likely to hear in a liturgy. The administration of Communion was strange nonetheless, the images have already gone around the world, of lay people distributing Communion while thousands of priests did not. This made even less sense considering the idea that we are supposed to be opposing clericalism, which this seemed an awful lot like, with priests separate from the rest of those in attendance. Many of those who are vocally aghast at this scenario may attend Latin Mass and forget that in many parishes there are not only lay people distributing the Eucharist, but there were thousands in attendance at World Youth Day who belong to groups such as the Neo Catechumenal Way, which is the polar opposite of the Latin Mass in terms of its relationship with the Eucharist. Although this element left something to be desired, it was not removed from the reality of the Eucharist in many daily scenarios, as unfortunate as that is. Nonetheless, if one watches the entire liturgy, it was remarkable for its reverence in both the celebrants and the hundreds of thousands of young people in attendance.
In the evening, as stated, there were events throughout the city. The organisers ensure that people are not left to their own devices and can instead enjoy music with other Catholics. Most though, will have returned early to their host schools, many to sleep on the floor in their school.
The following day, Pope Francis arrived for the official opening ceremony. Many of the young people in attendance have been denied the normal human experiences that were eradicated during the lockdown crisis of the last three years or so. For such a large portion of them, their first time exposed to a huge audience will have been for this event. They will have seen Francis’s arrival as a celebration not particularly of the man himself, but of the church that they are mocked for being a part of, of the faith that they are ostracised for professing, of the aspect of their life that the secular world tells them makes them alone and different. 600,000 others chanting ‘Juventud Del Papa’ will have been every rebuke that they will ever need to the world’s taunts.
The opening ceremony itself contained popular music that was uplifting, with a nod to Portugal’s traditional Fado music.
The lyrics of the song Foi Deus (‘It was God’) are particularly beautiful:
I know not, no one knows
Why I sing the fado in this hurtful tone of pain and mourning
And in this torment, all this suffering
I feel my soul is consoled by the verses I sing
It was God who gave voice to the wind,
Light to the heavens and made the waves of the sea blue
It was God who placed on my chest
A feathered rosary that I unravel as I cry and sing
He made a poet of the nightingale, he put rosemary in the fields
He gave flowers to the spring
Oh, he gave me this voice
If I sing, I know not what I sing
A mix of chance, longing, fondness and perhaps love
However I know that when singing, I feel that
When one has heartbreak and mourning on our face we are consoled
It was God who gave light to the eyes, gave gold to the sun and silver to moonlight
It was God who placed on my chest
A feathered rosary which
I unravel as I cry and sing
Confessions were available from 9am until 8pm each day at the nearby ‘City of Joy’, with queues by the thousand all day long. Pope Francis even got in on the act.
In close proximity, the ‘Vocational Fair’ allowed young people to discern the call to religious or married life.
It should also be noted that there several Latin Masses available throughout the city, including this one close to the ‘City of Joy’, which was packed with young people each day.
Bear in mind we are glossing over the main public events here, smaller groups engaged in pilgrimages of their own, in many cases to the Shrine at Fatima.
The Friday event was the Stations of the Cross with Pope Francis.
One of the most striking things that needs to be mentioned are those flags from across the world that show the extent of what it means to be a Catholic, something that would not be found at say an Orthodox World Youth Day or an Anglican World Youth Day. How fitting to be in a country like Portugal, which helped spread the faith to these countries. The majority of those flags appeared to be either Spanish or French, with those from the persecuted areas of Palestine, Nigeria, Iraq and elsewhere also present. In an era of Globalisation these flags are a reminder of how God uses our uniqueness to bring us closer together and to Him.
The Stations of the Cross drew what was then the largest crowd of the week, interspersed with messages from young people reflecting on life, addiction and faith.
Once again, the music was sublime. If you have seen these sort of large scale events, particularly the Stations of the Cross at Krakow in 2016, it is very easy for them to lead to confusion, indifference and even boredom. This had none of the sort and if you watch the clip you can see the reverence not only of those taking part but of the faithful too, young and numerous as they are.
Other events took place the same evening across the city, adoration, catechesis and music concerts. One of the biggest involved Matt Maher and around 40,000 people.
The various catechesis sessions were quite striking in their quality, many of them delivered by the likes of Bishop Robert Barron Archbishop Anthony Fisher and Cardinal O’Malley.
Saturday saw millions trek through the heat for hours to reach the campsite for the overnight vigil.
It was an incredible feat of organisation to turn the banks of the River Tagus into a spot where 1.5 million people were to camp out overnight, bearing the searing heat during the day, reaching temperatures above 40 Degrees Celsius.
Pope Francis arrived later that evening, The Portuguese hosts had pulled out all of the stops to impress those in attendance, including a flyover from jets and a drone display.
The Vigil itself was remarkable, the waterside setting at nightfall perfectly complementing the 1.5 million people kneeling in absolute silence before the Blessed Sacrament.
The footage is a revelation.
The young Catholics in attendance then camped out overnight as part of the Vigil, some stayed awake all night. Many slept.
The following morning, as the sun began to break, people made their way to get washed, to get coffee, to get breakfast.
Greeting their ears was the thumping of a dance remix of Hallelujah, followed by one of lockdown hit ‘Jerusalema’. Later music included Avicii and Pope Francis’s words dubbed over dance beats (lol).
This set by Father Guilherme Peixoto unleashed a wave of reactionary criticisms, many of them grounded in personal taste. Some claimed that a priest could not play dance music (no citation given), some that it was interrupting those preparing for Mass (which was not until hours later, most were wandering about, on their phones, getting coffee, getting washed), and others even implied that he was some sort of Satanist (he had appeared at a Catholic themed event with a medieval twist).
In reality the music served its purpose in not only waking people up, but also in illustrating the joy of the entire week. Virtually all of the 1.5 million in attendance thought that this was a great way to wake up after an all night vigil, the reaction online was also overwhelmingly positive.
To read through reactions on Twitter, people were genuinely taken aback by the warmth of the crowd and the happiness of the priest.
This individual reflected how many non Catholics or non practising Catholics felt about it.
The Mass once again featured impressive music arrangements, though the issue of the treatment of the Eucharist once again reared its head.
The Pillar wrote a very informative article on the matter.
Firstly, they distinguished between two controversies. One being the use of IKEA ciboria. As it transpired, these were used for a separate Mass by Spanish pilgrims, not by World Youth Day itself.
Secondly, there were images of Catholics kneeling before crates that contained the Blessed Sacrament The images sparked outrage.
The Pillar said that someone from World Youth Day told them:
For some reason, these instructions were not followed in the tent that has appeared in that photograph. But this was an exception.
The grey boxes in which ciboria were stored were donated to World Youth Day, and were not used for any other purpose.
The only way to transport 6,000 ciboria was in boxes, but every care was taken to do so with the utmost dignity. They weren’t pretty, but it was the solution we found. Regarding the rest, only nuns were involved in cleaning the ciboria, weighing the hosts, counting them, putting them in the ciboria and packing them in the boxes. The ciboria were designed so that they could be safely stacked, without crushing the hosts inside.
Savannah Dudzik, who made a viral post about her experiences at the tent, told The Pillar:
When we were there the only other people were the two who were kneeling and praying, but they left soon after we started kneeling and praying. They could have been behind the tent, or somewhere else, but we couldn’t see them
Another person told them:
There were people constantly on watch, and warning other people who might be coming past, pointing out that the Blessed Sacrament was there; the candles were lit the entire time; there were always people there praying.
I think that, in as far as is possible in a situation like this, it was done with great care and consideration for sanctity.
The ladies who were in charge of the tent thanked us, but declined (when offering help moving ciboria) saying that only they had permission to do so. And when time came to distribute Communion, even though we had been there with them all night, they still double-checked our credentials.
What I saw that night was an atmosphere of great reverence. The ladies on duty often warned passersby that The Lord was present in the tent, many people came by to pray in adoration.
Certainly some of the images were not ideal, but they had an explanation, even if more could have been done to avoid the situation.
What many saw during Communion was countless young people kneeling to receive the Eucharist on the tongue, in fact it was far more a common practise at this Mass than at many parishes on a Sunday.
No doubt there are many improvements to be made, but there have been so far no horror stories of hosts going missing, dropped or misplaced.
At the end of the final Mass, it was announced that the next World Youth Day will take place in Seoul in South Korea. This move is an inspired one, with the numbers of Catholics currently growing there.
Reflecting on the event, it was everything that the 2018 World Meeting of Families in Dublin was not.
That event saw a couple of relatively successful events in Croke Park in Dublin, but the trip was overshadowed by the world class incompetence involved in the debacle of the final Mass of the programme in the Phoenix Park. The organisers were well aware (unless they live under a rock) of a coordinated campaign to ruin the event. One was an unofficial campaign, run by Ireland’s (mostly British owned) media. The Daily Mail warned that ‘measles, hepatisis and influenza’ could lead to mass deaths at the event, with their disease riddled bodies shoved alongside potentially hundreds of others into makeshift morgues built for the Mass. The more overt campaign saw the braindead policy of allowing for free tickets online to be taken advantage of. The organisers were handing out 5,000 tickets a go to people signing up as Michael Jackson, Neil Armstrong and others. It would be hilarious if it were not so pitiful. The Mass ended up being attended by 1/5th of the expected attendees. No apology or explanation for the incompetence was ever issued, instead it was fobbed away as an instance where the Irish simply did not want to attend.
The Irish church is still recovering the demoralisation caused by the damage of the incompetent organisation of those involved with planning the event, who knows how long it will take, but maybe the hope from this will help.
It is no small wonder then that Irish media outlets have largely ignored the World Youth Day in Lisbon, people need to be kept in a bubble where they assume that the world is becoming more and more like secular English culture each day.
The event was everything that the Irish event was not, it was confident, it was faith based rather than status based, it was thoughtful of those in attendance only, rather than what the world at large thought.
That is not to sneer at the Irish Church, or the incompetent people that it hired to ‘organise’ the World Meeting of Families, it is to remind it of the culture shock that its young pilgrims would have gotten on this week, with the vibrancy embodied by their counterparts from France, Spain, Portugal and South America in particular.
God is real, God is joyful, God is with us.
Prior to this event, the high point of the papacy of Pope Francis was probably his Easter Vigil prayers during the lockdown in 2020. World Youth Day 2023 will now likely take that place, his homilies were simple compared with the rousing rallies of John Paul II or the fatherly reflection of Benedict XVI before him, but nonetheless, his presence at this event slotted well with the millions in attendance.
Could it have been more educational, informative, stern in its approach to catechesis? Of course. Could it have dealt with the Eucharist in a more sensitive manner? Yes. But was it a success overall? Yes, a resounding one.
World Youth Day Lisbon was a celebration of life, of youth, of Europe, of Portugal’s victory over the Moors and the glory that the Catholic Church brought to the peoples of the world under the crowns of Portugal and Spain, of the papacy, of Our Lady of Fatima, of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Many young people will have come away from the event with feelings akin to those words sung by Fado singer Carminho. Her song Estrella (Star) carried into the silence of the night in front of 1.5 million people in adoration. I will no longer be alone, I am very believing/That your own beam of light follows me now/ You are the star that guides my heart/ You are the star that lit my space/ You are the sign by which I guide my destiny/ You are the star and I the pilgrim.
You are the star that guides my heart
You are the star that lit my space
You are the sign by which I guide my destiny
You are the star and I the pilgrim
So far it has been such darkness
Of those who make us wise in the world
I experienced such uneven disappointment
That I came to give my childhood in a second
You don't even know what you did
For me, even for you when you arrived
I just know that when I saw you you lifted again
What in me was just gray and worn
You are the star that guides my heart
You are the star that lit my space
You are the sign by which I guide my destiny
You are the star and I the pilgrim
Love that gave way, but at a distance
Distance that made us believe
Which is the one that gives the real importance
To the freedom that is power and knowing how to love
Much happier now certainly
I am going on like this for life
I will no longer be alone, I am very believing
That your own beam of light follows me now
You are the star that guides my heart
You are the star that lit my space
You are the sign by which I guide my destiny
You are the star and I the pilgrim
You are the star and I the pilgrim
