Fatima – The secretary general of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference said today that the pope will announce on January 27 if the Portuguese candidature was chosen to organize the World Youth Days in 2022.
Father Manuel Barbosa spoke to journalists after the meeting of the Permanent Council of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), which took place in Fatima.
Linkage and good relationship with African countries could be “added value” in the candidacy, the CEP spokesman said, as well as the national “hospitality”.
In December, the Religionline website announced that the World Youth Days (WYD) of 2022, presided over by the Pope, will take place in Portugal, adding that the region of Lisbon “will welcome the main acts, namely the weekend of celebration.
Religionline, citing “various ecclesiastical sources,” stated that the official announcement will be made in Panama at the next WYD, which will take place from January 23 to 27, in which the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, Manuel Clemente, and others will be present. Portuguese bishops, to receive the testimony of the pope and bishop of Panama City.
“On this occasion, the patriarch of Lisbon, accompanied by a delegation of young Portuguese and Lisbon, will receive the cross of the journeys – the most important symbol of WYD, which the young people of the host country will carry and which will serve as a center for different initiatives, along the time of preparation, “read on the site of Catholic religious information.
The Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon made official the request to receive WYD at the end of 2017 and since 2012 that in several meetings of the Pontifical Council for the Laity (CPL) of the Vatican, the hypothesis of Portugal has been being considered, according to the website ‘.
The previous editions of World Youth Day were held in Cologne, Germany, 2005, Sydney, Australia, 2008, Madrid, 2011, with Pope Benedict XVI in Rio de Janeiro in 2013 and Krakow in Poland, in 2016, with the current pontiff.
