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Wednesday, 16 August 2023 12:36

A Brief History of World Youth Day

A Brief History of World Youth Day Photo: Alberto Palomino, O. Carm.

World Youth Day | Lisbon, Portugal | August 1-6, 2023

At the conclusion of the Holy Year of Redemption in 1984, Pope St. John Paul II invited young people from around the world to join him in St. Peter’s Square for an International Jubilee of youth on the following Palm Sunday. Some 300,000 young people attended. The first World Youth Day was announced in 1985 and the first official World Youth Day was held in 1986.

Its tradition comes from the practice in the Polish Church to have 13 day summer camps for young adults. It provides an opportunity for young people to meet people of the same faith and to share various prayer experiences over the weeklong “Day.”

Pope John Paul II explained his project at his final World Youth Day in Toronto. “When, back in 1985, I wanted to start the World Youth Days… I imagined a powerful moment in which the young people of the world could meet Christ, who is eternally young, and could learn from him how to be bearers of the Gospel to other young people.

The Carmelite Order inaugurated a Carmelite Day within the larger World Youth Day event after 2007. Although most young people were attending World Youth Day through their local diocese, the idea was to bring those from Carmelite ministries around the world together for one day to celebrate the Carmelite family.

The closing Mass for the 1995 World Youth Day in the Philippines, attended by 5 million people, set a world’s record for the largest number of people gathered for a single religious event. (That record was surpassed when 6 million people attended a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis 20 years later in the Philippines.)

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