The pope was in town while I was in Lisbon over the summer. Apparently, youthful pilgrims from all over the world convene at a predestined city every two to four years (replete with beer, rosaries, teenage hormones and national flags) and have an all-out, Catholic-Con-styled jubilee. The event is known as World Youth Day (WYD), in which the Catholic Church celebrates young adults and youth around the world in with religious programming, internationally-televised Pope appearances, site-seeing and celibate, beer-fueled celebrations.
The great flood of kids with beers in hand in the nocturnal labyrinths of Lisbon was a slightly puzzling sight to behold. But like Jesus said in the book of Mathew: we're here for a good time, not a long time (I'm paraphrasing the original Greek).
After searching for information on WYD, it appears that Pope Francis has declared 2025 to be a 'jubilee year.' The 'Jubilee of Young People' will take place on July 28, 2025 in Rome, forming an intermediary celebration between WYD Lisbon and 2027's WYD in Seoul. Although I've got no plans to make the pilgrimage to Seoul, I'm glad the 2023 pilgrimage coincidentally took place in Lisbon while I was there. The vibrant energy in the air was silly and somewhat refreshing after our own psychedelic festival pilgrimage to Boom the week before.
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