Bishop says WYD2023 in Lisbon should be a “raising anchor”
In Santiago de Compostela, in neighboring Spain, where he was present at the European Youth Pilgrimage (PEJ2022), which ends today after starting on Wednesday, Américo Aguiar said that, just as Portugal gave new worlds to the world 500 years ago and evangelized the world, WYD2023 can also be a “raising anchor”.
“It will be a single event and very special and urgent for a revival of the dreams, projects and lives of youth from around the world who, in the two years, found themselves confined in many geographies and existential realities”, said the auxiliary bishop of Lisbon and President of the JMJ Lisbon 2023 Foundation.
With a year to go before the journey takes place, Américo Aguiar has no doubts that this will be an “added value” for the church, the country and.
The JMJ Lisbon 2023 Foundation has made an extra effort to “absorb and learn what is important” so that the event is “totally positive”.
That’s why, this week, a team from the JMJ Lisbon 2023 Foundation was at the PEJ2022 which, as a kind of “launch” for the journey, met the first “big” European without the last two years due to the covid pandemic -19.
In his view, PEJ2022 was a “mini JMJ2023” and a “laboratory” to prepare Lisbon.
In addition, Américo Aguiar thanks “all the warnings” for the warnings arising and problems that go.
“Everything that is said and called to attention has been scrutinized and taken seriously by the organisation, the Lisbon and Loures Chambers, the Government and the Presidency of the Republic”, he said.
And as for the church of the symbols of the symbols of Lisbon, it was in the youth to say that, just like the bishop of the revolution, if it happens with Portuguese youth, the symbols of youth, with Portuguese youth, the symbol of the Cruzeg of youth MJ – Cruzeg and Portuguese youth. icon of Our Lady Salus Populi Romani.
Young people are available, he defended, adding that the church has to “discover the ‘password'” [palavra-passe] the `wifi´ of young people to be together with them”.
“We have to wake up to the urgency of knowing how to communicate with digital natives”, warned the president of the JMJ Lisbon 2023 Foundation.
JMJLisboa2023 will take place from the 1st to the 6th of August of next year in the Parque das Nações area, in Lisbon, also covering part of the territory of the municipality of Loures, in an event that counts with the presence of Pope Francis and in which more than one million young people around the world.