Vatican, 10 July, 2023 / 8:00 pm (ACI Africa).
“We don’t want to convert the young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that at all,” said Bishop Américo Aguiar, the head of World Youth Day (WYD) Lisbon 2023 who will be created a cardinal by Pope Francis in September.
World Youth Day will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 1–6.
Aguiar, an auxiliary bishop of Lisbon, made the statement July 6 in an interview with RTP Notícias, three days before Pope Francis announced the creation of 21 new cardinals, including the prelate.
In the interview, the bishop said that in his opinion the intention of World Youth Day is to have young people journey together, respecting their diversity.
For the cardinal-designate, the goal is to enable each young person to say: “‘I think differently, I feel differently, I organize my life in a different way, but we are brothers and we go together to build the future.’ This is the main message of this encounter with the living Christ that the pope wants to provide to young people.”