Thousands of young Poles will descend on Lisbon next week to take part in World Youth Day, the Catholic festival being held in the Portuguese capital on Aug. 1-6 under the slogan, “Mary rose and went in haste.”
Meetings with Pope Francis will be preceded by special days in the dioceses, which began on Wednesday.
As many as 25,000 Poles are expected to participate in the meetings with the Pope. Nearly 1,900 have registered from the Archdiocese of Krakow, 1,300 from the Archdiocese of Warsaw, and 800 from the Warsaw-Prague Diocese.
“This shows that most young people gather in large academic centers,” said Bishop Grzegorz Suchodolski, the chairman of the Council of the Conference of the Polish Episcopate for Youth.
He admitted that “such a large number of young Poles going to meet the Pope in Lisbon is a big surprise for him.”
So far, only at the World Youth Day in Rome back in 2000 were there more young people from Poland, when 50,000 flocked to the Italian capital; over 25,000 also visited Paris back in 1997.
“Considering that today, when many young people are distancing themselves from the Church or leaving it, such a large number of compatriots have decided to participate in the meeting with the Pope, it is a sign of hope for the Church in Poland,” added Suchodolski.
“Hopefully, we will be able to use the potential of the youth after World Youth Day in Lisbon,” he concluded.
