500k Young Catholics flock to the holy year of Rome, waiting for Pope Leo – National
Thousands of young Catholics poured into the Vatican’s Holy Year 2025 weekend highlights on Saturday in a vast field in the suburbs of Rome: night vigils, outdoor sleeping parties and morning mass celebrated by Pope Leo, marking his first big encounter with the next generation of Catholics.
Leo will certainly love what he saw: Over the past week, young Catholic bands from around the world have invaded the area around St. Peter’s Square to participate in their special Jubilee celebrations, during which 32 million people are expected to descend in Rome to participate in the century-old Catholic pilgrims.
Young people have been doing the cobbled streets wearing coloured T-shirts, praying for rosary and guitars, singing hymns of bongo drums and violins. Using their flags as tarps to protect them from the sun, they took over the entire square for Christian rock concerts and inspiring speeches, and spent hours in the circus Maximus, confessing their sins to 1,000 priests, offering sacraments in twelve different languages.
On Saturday, they began to reach the Tor Vergata field on the eastern side of Rome to reach the climax of the Jubilee celebration – an encounter with Leo. After a five-km (three miles) walk from the nearest subway station, they passed security checks, picked up boxed meals, and set up camps, backpacks and sleeping bags on Ready and Ready and umbrellas to give them shadows.
Leo, who was elected the first American pope in May, was flew by helicopters on Saturday night, hosting vigils and Q&A sessions. He then returned to the Vatican for the night and then returned on Sunday morning to see Popemobile Romp and Mass.
Mini World Youth Day 25 Years Later
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It all has the atmosphere of World Youth Day, the Catholic Woodstock Festival unveiled and famous in the Tor Vergata field held in Rome in 2000. Then, before an estimated 2 million people were estimated, John Paul told the young pilgrims that they were the “morning sentinels” of the third millennium dawn era.
Officials initially expected 500,000 young people this weekend, but Leo suggested that the number could reach 1 million.
“It’s a little screwed up, but it’s good for Jubilee,” said Chloe Jobbour, 19, a Lebanese Catholic who was in Rome with a group of more than 200 young members of the French charismatic group.
She said, for example, it took two hours to have supper on Friday night because KFC was overwhelmed by orders. The Salesian School offers her group housing an hour away from the bus. But, like many people this week, job seekers don’t mind discomfort: it’s all about the experience.
“I don’t want it to be better than this. I expect it to be.” She said, as her group members gathered on the steps of the church near the Vatican and sang and prayed, then headed to Tor Vergata.
Before the vigil began, a tragedy had already occurred: The Vatican confirmed that an 18-year-old Egyptian, identified as Pascale Rafic, died during a pilgrimage. Leo met with the group she traveled with on Saturday and expressed her condolences to her family.
The weather is largely cooperative: while Italian civilian protection personnel prepare for a possible temperature of 34 degrees Celsius (93F) or higher this week, mercury has not exceeded 30c (85F) and is not expected to exceed.
Romans are inconvenient, but tolerant
The Romans who did not escape the slam were inconvenient to other tribes in the infamous public transportation system. Residents are sharing social media posts from Romans that were angered by children from flooded platforms and crowded bus stops, complicating their commute to work.
But other Romans welcomed the enthusiasm brought by young people. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has provided a video welcome, surprised the young man to the “Extraordinary Festival of Faith, Joy and Hope” that brought to the Eternal City.
“I think it’s great,” said Rina Verdone, a Roman beautician who lives near Tor Vergata Field, woke up on Saturday and found a group of policemen gathering outside her home, a massive, 4,000-person operation to keep peace. “You think faith, religion is difficult, but it proves that it is not.”
Verdone has already made plans to take an alternative route home on Saturday afternoon, which will take a multiple kilometre (half mile) walk as she fears a “invasion” of nearby children will disrupt her usual bus route. But she said she was happy to make sacrifices.
“You think the invasion is negative. But it’s an active invasion,” she said.
& Copy 2025 Canadian Press
