(Vatican Radio) Final preparations are continuing in Rio De Janeiro for the opening of World Youth Day 2013. Pope Francis will depart from Rome to Brazil on Monday. While there the Pope will participate in numerous events including liturgies, the Via Crucis and a prayer vigil with young people. This will also be the Holy Father’s first apostolic journey. Thousands of young people have already arrived in Rio but there are still many who are on their way to be with the Pope in Brazil.
One of those getting ready to depart from Ireland is Anna Keegan who is a Faith Development officer in the Archdiocese of Dublin. Anna is no stranger to the WYD having been to four previous encounters. Anna told Lydia O’Kane that she is also looking forward to this event because it will be first time she will be attending a World Youth Day presided over by Pope Francis. “ Pope Francis seems to be really outgoing and really fun and I think because he is going to South America, you know, where he is from, I think it will be great and I am really looking forward to seeing what his message is, to be honest, to young people.”
Vatican Radio
The Concho Padre
Pope Francis today paid a visit to Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI. He asked Pope Benedict to join him in prayer and solidarity as the new Pontiff prepares to head to Brazil for World Youth Day, his first Apostolic Pilgrimage outside of Italy since being elected to the Chair of Peter.
Read more from Catholic News Service.
The Concho Padre
Brazil is in suspense waiting for the Pope’s visit. The visit is attracting attention especially because he is the first Latin American Pope and also because he chose the symbolic name of Francis, dear to believers and non-believers alike. The Pope’s smile and simplicity, his closeness to the poor and his systematic remembrance of them in his actions and words make him a pastor prepared to lavish zeal and love on his sheep. His simple, direct words, born from a heart imbued with profound pastoral fervour, reach to the very depths of people. They instantly identify with his words because they concern their own daily lives. The light tone in which he says them takes nothing from their clarity, depth and power, conferring fresh vigour on the Church and regenerating enthusiasm for faith. In Rio de Janeiro, alongside young people from every part of the world, we shall have the opportunity to come even closer to Francis to quench our thirst with the spirituality that shines out from his gestures and his words. Without any doubt the Pope’s visit will confer new ardour on the evangelization of young people who have deserved the special attention of the Church in Brazil in recent years. Although there are many young people who are active in our communities, we are worried by the number of those who are drifting away from them. It is not that they have stopped believing in God. Faith continues to be alive in their hearts, but they no longer feel the need for the Church’s mediation to express it and bear witness to it. The recent demonstrations in our country are a sign that in the face of the situation of suffering that affects so many Brazilians, young people have not let themselves be contaminated by the culture of well-being which leads to indifference to our neighbour, as the Holy Father recalled recently in Lampedusa.
L’Osservatore Romano (Vatican Newspaper)
The Concho Padre
(Vatican Radio) “His Holiness Pope Francis shares wholeheartedly in the pain of the families afflicted by the death of one of their own, and in that of the leaders and organizers of the group.”
Pope Francis learned on Thursday of a tragic accident in French Guiana. A bus carrying young people to World Youth Day was hit head-on by a truck, leaving one young Parisian girl dead, and three other people in critical condition.
In a message of condolence sent by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone on the Pope’s behalf to the Bishop of Cayenne, the capital of French Guyana, the Holy Father assured all those involved in the accident of his prayers, and expressed his deepest sympathy for the victims, as well as for the rescue workers and all those around them. Pope Francis sent a special Apostolic Blessing to all those affected by the tragedy.
The accident occurred about sixty kilometres from Saint-Laurent du Maroni, on the main road connecting the city to Cayenne. The cause of the accident is not yet known.
On Thursday evening, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris, will lead a prayer vigil organised by the victims’ parish in France; while in French Guyana, the Bishop of Cayenne will offer Mass at the Cathedral.
Vatican Radio
Let us pray for these folks, too! The Concho Padre
SAO PAULO (CNS) — As hundreds of thousands of young Catholic pilgrims descend on Brazil, World Youth Day coordinators in Rio de Janeiro are putting the finishing touches on preparations for up to 2.5 million people.
Read more from Catholic News Service
Pope Francis will remain at St. Martha’s House residence in the Vatican, even during the summer months. The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ affirmed the Holy Father’s intentions after presenting the Pope’s summer schedule on Thursday.
Fr. Lombardi also announced that that the public celebration of morning Mass in the chapel of the St. Martha’s House will be suspended, starting July 8th.
The schedule released by the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household also explains that all private and special audiences are suspended as well: General audiences are suspended during the month of July, and will resume on Wednesday, August 7th, at the Vatican.
Pope Francis will travel to Castel Gandolfo on 14 July for the Sunday Angelus.
From Monday, July 22nd, to Monday, July 29th, the Pope will be in Brazil for World Youth Day celebrations.
The Concho Padre
THE CONCHO PADRE POST 