Pope Francis urges Europe to work for peace as he visits Portugal for World Youth Day

O Jornal
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LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Pope Francis challenged Europe to retake its role as a peacemaker and bridgebuilder as he arrived Wednesday in Portugal to open World Youth Day, hoping to inspire the next generation of Catholics to work together to combat conflicts, climate change and other problems facing the world.

Francis is spending five days in Lisbon, blending a state visit and pilgrimage to the Catholic shrine at Fatima with the raucous trappings of World Youth Day, the Catholic jamboree that aims to rally young Catholics in their faith. More than 1 million young people from around the world were expected to attend the gathering, which culminates with a papal Mass on Sunday.

Pope Francis and Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, right, converse at the Welcome Ceremony at the Belém presidential palace in Lisbon, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023. Pope Francis' visit to Portugal includes his participation at the 37th World Youth Day, and a pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Fátima.
Pope Francis and Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, right, converse at the Welcome Ceremony at the Belém presidential palace in Lisbon, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023. Pope Francis' visit to Portugal includes his participation at the 37th World Youth Day, and a pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Fátima.

As he was traveling to Lisbon, Francis vowed to continue urging young people to “make a mess” – a reference to his now-famous exhortation at his first World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. It was a call for young people to shake things up in their parishes, and has come to symbolize Francis’ own revolutionary reforms that have shaken up the church at large.

“We are sailing amid storms on the ocean of history, and we sense the need for courageous courses of peace,” he said. “It is my hope that World Youth Day will be, for the ‘Old Continent,’ the aged continent, an impulse towards universal openness.”

People wait outside the Palácio Nacional de Belém presidential palace in Lisbon, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, where Pope Francis was attending a welcome ceremony. Pope Francis arrived Wednesday in Lisbon to attend the international World Youth Day on Sunday that is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of young Catholic faithful to Portugal.
People wait outside the Palácio Nacional de Belém presidential palace in Lisbon, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, where Pope Francis was attending a welcome ceremony. Pope Francis arrived Wednesday in Lisbon to attend the international World Youth Day on Sunday that is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of young Catholic faithful to Portugal.

Citing Russia's war in Ukraine, global warming and Europe’s demographic decline, he urged young people in particular to take up the mantle to build a future together.

“I dream of a Europe, the heart of the West, which employs its immense talents to settling conflicts and lighting lamps of hope,” Francis said. “A Europe capable of recovering its youthful heart, looking to the greatness of the whole and beyond its immediate needs. A Europe inclusive of peoples and persons, without chasing after ideologies.”

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.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Pope Francis urges Europe to work for peace as he visits Portugal