Spain heads the list of countries with the most pilgrims registered for World Youth Day (WYD) in Lisbon, the meeting of young people from all over the world with the Pope that is held periodically on an international basis in a city chosen by the Pontiff every two or three years.
The Portuguese capital will welcome between August 1 and 6 some 600,000 pilgrims from some 200 countries. Spain, with 40,000 registered, surpasses the host country and leads a list followed by Italy, Portugal, France, Poland and the United States.
From the dioceses of Catalonia, Mallorca and Menorca there will be 3,200 young people from parishes, movements, groups, schools or universities who will travel with the organization of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) and another 3,000 who will do so on their own.
Figures that have exceeded the organization's own expectations and that the director of the Interdiocesan Secretariat for Youth of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, Carlos Bosch, describes as very positive.
To give just one example, more than a thousand young people have mobilized from the diocese of Terrassa, triple the number on the last trip organized by the bishopric to a similar event. "This is the first time that so many of us have attended," acknowledges the Youth delegate, the priest Àlex Serra.
For Bosch there are three factors that may have contributed to the success of this meeting, lived by the participants not only as a pilgrimage, but also as a "youth party" and an invitation to "build a more just and supportive world".
The proximity of Spain to Portugal, the pandemic that forced the Lisbon event to be postponed to this year (the last WYD was held in Panama in 2019) and "the desire for spirituality among young people" would explain, according to Bosch, the interest in this meeting, which the Catholic Church opens to everyone, to those closest to the Church and also to those furthest away.
Participants like Clara Maluenda, 26, who is attending this meeting organized by the Pope for the third time. She attended the meeting held in Madrid in 2011 for the first time, when she was 14, and in 2016, the one in Krakow. “It is a very enriching experience, you form a community and live the faith with people from all over the world and movements different from yours”, explains Maluenda, who will attend the meeting with a group of young people from Barcelona.
Who also repeats the experience is Montse del Cacho, 24 years old, who on this occasion coordinates a group of 150 young people between the ages of 15 and 30 from the diocese of Terrassa who will leave on July 30 by bus with a stop at the sanctuary of Fatima. “The main objective is to meet with God, with the Holy Father and share moments of faith with friends; there are many young people in this society who want to dedicate a few days to God”, she explains.
Those who have been on the road for days are the 80 young people from the parishes of Sant Mateu and Sant Rafael, in the Guineueta neighborhood of Barcelona. During 40 days they will have covered 1,276 kilometers, about 32 a day. A pilgrimage with a cause: they are looking for sponsors who give one euro for each kilometer of the route. The money will be used to finance the restoration project of the old chapel of the Mental Institute and to build a new parish center.
A few days ago, the rector of Sant Rafael, Ferran Lorda, on his way to Lisbon, near Benicàssim, highlighted the good rate of donations and the "excellent pilgrimage spirit" of a long journey, which, if forecasts are correct, meet, will end in Lisbon on August 4.
