Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has said that he has a “great will” to stand again for head of state, when asked if he expected to act as host for the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day in 2022.
Speaking in Panama City, where he was attending this year’s WYD celebrations, de Sousa started by saying “I have said that my decision is only in mid-2020” but added that “I leave here … with a great desire to, if God gives me health and if I think I am the best chance for Portugal, with a great will to stand again.”
Asked about what makes him less than certain, the president said: “I have to be healthy and I have to see if there is no one in a better position to receive the pope.”
The president spoke to journalists after attending a mass presided over by Pope Francis in the cathedral of Santa Maria la Antigua, the patron of Panama, and before a meeting with his Panamanian counterpart.
De Sousa, who is himself a professed Catholic, arrived in Panama on Friday to attend his first WYD, describing himself as “very enthusiastic” about the event, “first because there are many Portuguese pilgrims, second because there is a very large presence by Portuguese bishops, third because there is the presence – which I know is very significant here for Panama – of the [travelling] image of Our Lady of Fatima.”
He added that he had come to Panama “in expectation … that at the end of these journeys” there is a “great joy for Portugal”, with the announcement that the next WYD is to be in Lisbon, in 2022.
The WYD is a gathering of young people from around the world with the Pope, in a festive and religious setting.
De Sousa was elected president in January 2016, succeeding Aníbal Cavaco Silva.
