Hundreds of thousands of young
people filled a vast field on the outskirts of Rome on Saturday
to see Pope Leo, in the largest event yet of the new Catholic
pontiff’s tenure, as part of a special weekend aimed at
energizing Catholic youth.
Young people from more than 146 countries, some wearing
colourful bandanas to ward off the hot summer sun, were pressed
against fences in the Tor Vergata field as Leo toured the crowd
in his white popemobile in late afternoon.
The pope, smiling broadly, waved, offered blessings and
occasionally caught small stuffed animals and national flags
thrown by the youth as he passed by.
“Dear young people … my prayer for you is that you may
persevere in faith, with joy and courage,” Leo said in remarks
later to the crowd.
“Seek justice in order to build a more humane world,” he
said. “Serve the poor, and so bear witness to the good that we
would always like to receive from our neighbours.”
Many of the youth attending the event with Leo spent all day
waiting in the field in heat approaching 30 degrees Celsius
(86\u00b0F) to see the pope.
Organizers were using water cannons to help cool down people
in the crowd.
“For me, it is an incredible emotion because I had never
been to an event like this before,” said Maya Remorini, from
Italy’s Tuscany region. She said her group had arrived around 5
a.m. that morning.
Many of the youth are expected to sleep in the field
overnight, waiting for a second chance to see Leo on Sunday
morning, when the pope is due to celebrate a Catholic mass.
The weekend events are tied to the ongoing Catholic Holy
Year, which the Vatican says has attracted some 17 million
pilgrims to Rome since it started at the end of 2024.
Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, was elected on May 8 by the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of thousands of youngpeople filled a vast field on the outskirts of Rome on Saturdayto see Pope Leo, in the largest event yet of the new Catholicpontiff’s tenure, as part of a special weekend aimed atenergizing Catholic youth.Young people from more than 146 countries, some wearingcolourful bandanas to ward off the hot summer sun, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n