In 2023, World Youth Day took place in Lisbon, Portugal. An estimated 3 million young people attended.
At the time, Catholic Arena wrote of the event’s success that it ‘was a celebration of life, of youth, of Europe’. Anyone who attended will have been struck by the scale of the enthusiasm and energy, which struck a more profound contrast with the world at large than ever before, especially in the immediate post Covid period.
The event was not without its critics, many of whom took particular offence at perceived irreverence in Padre Guilherme, the DJ priest, and in the storage of the Blessed Sacrament in containers overnight.
However, overall, the event really pointed to something fascinating occurring with young people, particularly in Europe, which was represented by strong contingents from Spain and France. The faith of these young people seemed to be confident, optimistic and in many cases quite reverent and traditional.
Two years later, the best parts of that World Youth Day seem to have been at the heart of the Jubilee of Youth in Rome. What we saw that week has since been confirmed by report after report of Gen Z being more religious than their predecessors, of huge numbers of adult conversions at Easter and of record breaking Bible sales.
During the week of the Jubilee, the streets were filled, but so too were the churches. The line into Saint Peter’s Basilica on Friday morning took hours to enter, with queues filled by the thousands from morning to the afternoon, only being relieved when there was a massive gathering of Spanish pilgrims in the square in the evening. This was in searing heat at the height of the sun.
The arrival of Pope Leo XIV into Saint Peter’s Square on Tuesday had given an indication of the atmosphere at the event.
The pope himself got caught up in this excitement.
On Saturday, we walked for three and a half hours (possibly longer) to Tor Vergota for the overnight Vigil. We arrived just as Pope Leo XIV was making his way through the crowd. The images recorded convey the excitement felt by the young people, but the reality of it was far more emotional than even those images get across. Certainly for the smartphone generation, the Covid generation, to be with one million others at such an outpouring of joy must be a confirmation to every religious impulse that they have.
At adoration, a visibly emotional Pope Leo XVI led the young people in worship of their Lord. One of the striking things about this was that, unlike previous World Youth Day type events, there was no modern music or popular singers during the adoration. Most of the young people around us remained on their knees in prayer for the duration of adoration (with a few even fainting after the long day).
During the night, the camp sites were alive with joy. People stayed awake singing, dancing and praying in groups until the early hours, some all the way through until the morning Mass.
As morning broke, it was common in the campsite to see large groups praying morning prayer together.
Then, the arrival of Pope Leo XIV, even more rapturous than the night before. This time he visited the entire campsite, giving the entire 1 million in attendance a view of their pope.
After Mass, Leo walked back in front of the crowd to announce his excitement as seeing everyone again in South Korea in 2027 at World Youth Day.
While the church may be missing some of the good things from its past, while it may be struggling to overcome the scandals of the past decades and the corruption that has blackened its name, these young people do not seem to care too much about looking on the downside.
The optimism and the enthusiasm was something that we felt a hint of in 2023, but which we never could have imagined on this scale and at this intensity at such a large event.
In 2025 alone, Europe has seen record crowds at Chartres and at the Jubilee, record adult baptisms everywhere from France to Ireland to England and a renewed interest borne of the emotion surrounding Pope Francis’s death and the election of his successor.
For all of the problems in Europe, and there are many, from the culture of death to low birth rates to the collapse of faith in places like Germany, there has been enough encouragement to show us that not only are we in the fight for the coming decade, but that we have the best raw materials that we could hope for, millions of unapologetically Catholic young people.
Do not underestimate them.