Pope Francis plans to head to Portugal on Wednesday to open the first post-pandemic edition of World Youth Day, hoping to inspire the next generation of Catholics while coping with the church’s ongoing clergy sexual abuse scandal. | AP
“The pope always says this event is the joy and the possibility of coming together, of the culture of coming together,” Aguiar said in an interview. “After such limitations and difficulties, young people from all over the world will be able to meet again, with certain freedom.”
Francis is widely expected to meet in private with abuse survivors this week and could well refer to the problem in his public remarks, as he has done during past foreign trips. Portuguese bishops were widely criticized for their initial response to the findings of an independent commission, which reported in February that at least 4,815 boys and girls were abused in the country since 1950, most of them ages 10-14.
In its place, victims’ advocates have launched a campaign called “This is our memorial” and plan to put up billboards around Lisbon this week reading “4,800+ Children Abused.”St. John Paul II launched World Youth Day in the 1980s as a way to invigorate the next generation of Catholics in their faith, and the event is returning to European soil for the first time since 2016.
Hot weather could be an issue during the five-day visit, given temperatures in Lisbon are expected to hit 35 C on Sunday. Many young people were expected to camp out in the vast, unshaded Tagus Park starting Saturday afternoon, first to participate in an evening vigil and then to be in place Sunday morning for Francis’ final Mass.
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