When Pope Francis made the first foreign trip of his papacy, to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day in 2013, he asked young people to make a “mess” in their local churches, to shake things up even if it offended their bishops.
As he embarks this week on another edition of World Youth Day, in Lisbon and Portugal, Francis has taken his advice to heart. After 10 years as pope, Francis is taking forward his reform agenda and making revolutionary changes in personnel and policy that disrupted things up.
Despite recovering from a second intestinal surgery in as many years, the 86-year-old Francis is opening a frenetic second half of the year with his Portugal visit. He seems aware that he has a limited sweet spot of time to solidify the changes he believes are necessary for the 21st-century church, and is looking to the next generation of faithful leaders to carry them forward.
Papal biographer Austen Ivereigh said, “The sense I get is that this is the consolidation phase of the pontificate…He’s laying the basis now, laying the ground, for the future.”
The international rally, which St. John Paul II launched in 1986 to encourage young Catholics in their faith, is anticipated to draw up to 1 million people for the first post-pandemic event of its kind. Francis’ perennial social justice concerns about climate change, social inequality and fraternity, as well as, Russia’s war in Ukraine, are expected to be major themes.
Sister Nathalie Becquart, who is one of the key synod organisers, said, “I really think that for Pope Francis, he felt that OK, now it’s mature’ and it would be good really to involve all the members, all the people in the synod as members” with the right to vote.
At age 49, Francis will become the second-youngest member of the College of Cardinals when he is installed on 30 September 2023. He is just six months older than the current youngest cardinal, whom Francis elevated this time last year: Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, head of the church in Mongolia where Francis will travel at the end of August 2023.
Portuguese Cardinal-elect Americo Aguiar, who is in charge of World Youth Day, is a young churchman who also understands his appointment as part of a generational turning point for the Catholic hierarchy.
In an interview, Aguiar said, “My reading of it is that this has to do with young people, it has to do with youth, it has to do with Portugal, it has to do with World Youth Day, it has to do with all of that.” He further added, “I think that his objective and his underlining was exactly to send a signal to the young people, to every young person who is preparing the day, whether in Portugal or in the world, to feel identified with this decision.”
