A SEA of flag-waving pilgrims from around the world packed a Lisbon park on Tuesday for an open-air Mass that kicked off a week-long jamboree of Catholic youth on the eve of the arrival of Pope Francis.
Lisbon's patriarch, Cardinal Manuel Clemente, delivered the homily at the service held at the hillside Eduardo VII park with sweeping views of the Portuguese capital and the Tagus river.
"Lisbon welcomes you wholeheartedly," he told the crowd as pilgrims waved national flags in the air.
Local authorities expect some 300,000 people to attend the opening Mass of World Youth Day, which is actually a week of religious, cultural and festive events held every three years in a different city.
Francis is set to arrive in Lisbon on Wednesday morning to join the event, which has been dubbed the "Catholic Woodstock".
The 86-year-old pontiff is by Church standards the most liberal pope in decades and is very popular with young people.
During his papacy, he has tried to create a more compassionate church, reaching out to the gay community and talking frankly to youngsters about abortion, divorce and gender identity.
"Pope Francis is open to young people," said Cristina Kelly, a 39-year-old who came from Brazil, just before the start of the Mass.
"He called on us and we came. People need that today, for young people to be called to God," she told AFP.
'Recharge spiritual battery'
In Portugal, the pope has a typically packed schedule for his five-day visit, despite having spent nine nights in hospital after undergoing hernia surgery in June.
Francis, the first Latin American pope, is due to make 11 public pronouncements and hold numerous meetings, and on Saturday will visit the shrine of Fatima north of Lisbon.
Church organisers expect one million faithful will attend the event's closing mass which will be delivered by the pope on Sunday at a waterside park on the outskirts of Lisbon.
Images of the pope were on display on banners across the city as well as on screens on automatic bank machines along with the message: "I am with you".
A Lisbon pastry shop is even selling cookies with the image of the smiling pontiff wearing a crucifix.
"My goal is to recharge my spiritual battery because sometimes, as young people, we let it run low," Xochilt Cecilia Velis, a 24-year-old from El Salvador, told AFP in central Lisbon.
World Youth Day is part of the Vatican's efforts to galvanise young Catholics at a time when secularism and disgust over clerical child sex abuse cause some faithful to abandon the Church.
Meeting with abuse victims
The gathering comes as the Portuguese Catholic Church is reckoning with its legacy of clerical sexual abuse.
A report released in February by an independent commission determined that at least 4,815 children had been abused by clergy members in Portugal since 1950.
The inquiry – similar to audits elsewhere in Europe and the Americas–- concluded that the Church hierarchy "systematically" tried to conceal the abuse.
Pope Francis is scheduled to meet privately with abuse victims during his visit but the date of the encounter or other details has not been released.
Initially scheduled for August 2022, but postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Lisbon World Youth Day is the 16th international edition of what has become the largest gathering of Catholics worldwide.
A brainchild of late Pope John Paul II, the event started in 1986.
The current one is the fourth presided over by Pope Francis, who became head of the Catholic Church in 2013.
The last three events took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2013, Krakow, Poland in 2016 and Panama City, Panama in 2019. – AFP, August 2, 2023
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