Hundreds of thousands of young people descended on the Eternal City throughout the week for a festival of faith, music and religious services that saw groups of teens and young adults from across the globe singing songs, waving flags on Rome’s ancient streets and camping out in huge warehouses on the city’s outskirts.
After descending by helicopter on Saturday evening, Pope Leo XIV greeted the sea of excited pilgrims with waves and blessings – and at one point, catching a tennis ball thrown from the crowd, showing off a skill he may have learned from his own love of the sport.
After a prayer vigil, which took place at a sprawling site in Rome’s Tor Vergata district, the crowd slept under the stars before waking up early Sunday as Leo returned to celebrate Mass.
For Leo, who has been in post for less than 100 days, the mega-meeting of youth marks the first test for his pontificate on whether he can connect with the church’s younger generations. The Vatican said authorities estimated more than a million young people turned out for the Sunday Mass alone, making it the largest event of his papacy.
Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, was a hit with many young people, with a style that put aside pre-prepared speeches to engage in a back and forth with big crowds and who took tough questions from them about loss of faith, abortion and sexual abuse.
Leo has a different style to Francis. The Chicago-born pope frequently keeps to his set texts and leans on the Vatican for help in a way that his more disruptive predecessor frequently avoided.
Credit: cnn.com
