The first week of August saw 1.5 million young people from over a hundred countries gather in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, Lisbon, for World Youth Day (WYD). The home country of Our Lady of Fatima has rarely seen so many gather to celebrate the Faith that unites us all.
My wife Monica and I joined over a dozen leaders of the Goodlove Foundation to bring the good news about life and love and spread it to young people throughout the world. The foundation, which enjoys the support of the Population Research Institute, sponsors sixteen programs around the world that reach out to young people around the world.
Leaders from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Laity, Life and Family joined us in our work, emphasizing how much they count Goodlove’s indispensable work in bringing to the world the Church’s beautiful teaching on sexuality, marriage, and family.
And we delivered.
At WYD, we spoke to tens of thousands of young people, priests, nuns and bishops from different countries. Together with other Goodlove leaders and volunteers, we handed out thousands of brochures explaining the beauty of sexuality as proposed by the Church.
People from every continent–Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans and North America–all welcomed us, eager to learn more about the beauty of true love.
Many were discovering for the first time that God has given us a roadmap for respecting the gift of sexuality, one that teaches the value of chastity.
The three-day event took place in a spirit of celebration. Young people gathered to hear to Christian rock and rap concerts, stayed up late talking and praying, and then went to Mass early the next morning. Unlike many large gatherings, there was not one act of violence, not one trash can set on fire, not one miscreant arrested by the police.
While it’s true that many of these young people were unhappy with the secular world, they didn’t burn down any car dealerships or tear down any statues. Nobody flaunted drugs or alcohol.
Who were they?
They were Catholics, along with Christians of other faiths, who came to Lisbon for World Youth Day. The rock concerts were all about Jesus, celebrating the experience of knowing Christ, young artists singing about God and the joy of conversion. The disc jockey, a Portuguese priest, took his role seriously, and soon everybody was dancing.
The evenings were set aside for prayer and for friendship. There, young Catholics could meet their brothers and sisters from the other side of the world and participate in more than 600 officially-sponsored programs, along with hundreds more that were organized by dioceses and other Catholic apostolates, such as the Goodlove Foundation.
Bishops from around the world preached the truths of the Faith. I joined some 20,000 young people to hear Bishop Robert Barron invite the young to imitate Jesus who calls us from the Cross to get out of our “safe spaces” and proclaim Him to a callous world. “Have courage,” he said, “go out of your comfort zone. Speak openly about Jesus, for your personal good and for the good of society.”
Some bishops focused on the defense of life from conception, while others warned about “Agenda 2030,” a program to create a secular New World Order—and promote abortion—all in the name of the false god of “progress.”
In the months leading up to World Youth Day, some Catholics worried that the gathering would in some way promote “Agenda 2030”. Nothing of the sort happened. The U.N.’s “development goals” went unmentioned.
Other Catholics feared that the celebration would provide an occasion for demands that the Church change its moral teachings on family, marriage, and sexuality. That didn’t happen either. While the notorious Father James Martin, S.J., was indeed present in Lisbon—unofficially—he was scarcely noticed. His event pushing the LGBT agenda attracted only a couple hundred attendees from the million and a half attendees—inadvertently demonstrating how little support such views have among even young Catholics.
In fact, one young man wanted to carry a “rainbow flag” in the flag parade. The other young participants, with great charity, said, “You are welcome to join us, but that flag isn’t.”
Clearly, the young people had not come to Portugal to demand revolutionary changes in the Church’s sexual morality. Perhaps this is why the legacy media treated this enormous gathering like a nonevent.
In contrast to James Martin’s pathetic showing, I and other members of the Goodlove Foundation spoke to tens of thousands.
Present also was Christopher West, a specialist in Theology of the Body, who gave six massively attended talks on the beauty of sexuality lived as God intends it to be lived.
Even though there were more than 200 confessionals filled with priests hearing confessions all day long, there was an endless stream of those waiting outside. Despite the large number of confessors, I happily observed that the confession lines were even longer than those at McDonald’s, where the pilgrims could redeem their complementary vouchers for food.
More than 35,000 young volunteers helped everything to run smoothly throughout the three-day event. These joyous young people said they were blessed to be able to play a role in such great and holy event.
One young volunteer made his World Youth Day pilgrimage even more memorable. During a break between talks, he went down on bended knee and proposed to his girlfriend. And there, in front of thousands of fellow volunteers, she accepted.
Even more beautiful was the report of a miracle. Jimena, a blind girl from Madrid, recovered her sight after receiving Communion at Mass. News of her healing spread like wildfire throughout the massive crowd. Few were surprised that God would choose to perform a miracle at such a spirit-filled, prayerful event.
World Youth Day in Lisbon was a miracle of another kind: a tsunami of youthful energy, joy and prayer. A million and a half young people deepening their faith, reconciling with their God, and communing with Him in the Blessed Sacrament is a force to be reckoned with.
Monica and I came away from the event filled with a sense of hope for the future. We know that God is still present in young hearts. They will carry on the battle to respect the Culture of Life in their families, their communities, and their countries.
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[Here’s more on the miracle of Jimena]
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/08/08/miracle-fatima-sight-wyd-245809
