World Youth Day 2023

After two successful international gatherings with young people in Rome in 1984 and 1985, St. John Paul II instituted the annual observance of World Youth Day in December 1985 as an annual gathering of youth and young adults for prayer, worship, and celebration of the Catholic faith.  He told the College of Cardinals that year, “…the whole Church, in union with the Successor of Peter, must be more and more committed, globally, to youth and young adults – and to their anxieties and concerns and to their openness, hopes, and expectations…”

From that day forward, World Youth Day was celebrated each year by the global Church (during every Palm Sunday liturgy in Rome since 1984) and locally in many dioceses around the world. Every two or three years, an international gathering is held to bring all the youth and young adults together in one place with the Holy Father. After the first two gatherings in Rome (in 1984 and 1985), the subsequent international gatherings have taken place in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1987); Santiago de Compostela, Spain (1989); Czestochowa, Poland (1991); Denver, U.S.A. (1993); Manila, Philippines (1995); Paris, France (1997); Rome, Italy, for the Millennium Jubilee (2000); Toronto, Canada (2002); Cologne, Germany (2005); Sydney, Australia (2008); Madrid, Spain (2011); Rio de Janiero, Brazil (2013); Krakow, Poland (2016); and in Panama City, Panama (2019).  (Courtesy of the USCCB website)

For more information, please visit the USCCB World Youth Day page at https://www.usccb.org/topics/world-youth-day.

The next World Youth Day international gathering will be in Lisbon, Portugal in 2023. The Archdiocese of Washington will offer an opportunity to travel to WYD 2023 as a group through Dube Travel. More information on this pilgrimage including the exact dates for WYD 2023 will be available soon.