LISBON, Portugal — Pope Francis arrived in Portugal on Wednesday to open the first edition of World Youth Day since the Covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of large gatherings, as he hopes to inspire the next generation of Catholics while coping with the church’s ongoing clergy sexual abuse scandal.
More than 1 million young people from around the world were expected to attend the gathering in Lisbon, which takes place over several days.
Cardinal-elect Américo Aguiar, a Lisbon bishop who is organizing the festival, said that two years of Covid-19 lockdowns made this year’s edition of World Youth Day unique. He said it was an important encounter for Catholic youths, especially with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and economic uncertainties around the globe.
Francis arrives Wednesday and is scheduled to spend the morning meeting with Portuguese officials at the Belem National Palace, the official presidential residence west of Lisbon, from where Portugal’s maritime explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries set sail.
In the afternoon, Francis makes his way to the 16th-century Jeronimos Monastery and church, arguably Portugal’s greatest monument. There, he will meet with the Portuguese Catholic hierarchy, which recently began the process of reckoning with its legacy of clergy sexual abuse.
Francis is widely expected to meet in private with abuse survivors this week and could well refer to the problem in his public remarks, as he has done during past foreign trips. Portuguese bishops were widely criticized for their initial response to the findings of an independent commission, which reported in February that at least 4,815 boys and girls were abused in the country since 1950, most of them ranging in age from 10 to 14.
The bishops long insisted there were only a handful of cases, and initially balked at suspending active members of the clergy who were named in the commission’s report. They also flip-flopped on paying reparations to victims, at first insisting they would only pay if ordered to by court rulings. / AP