According to information from the press office of WYD Lisbon 2023 (JMJ2023), the symbols - the Pilgrim Cross and the icon of Our Lady Salus Populi Romani - "will be on pilgrimage through the 21 dioceses of Portugal, thus announcing the largest gathering of young people in the world that is scheduled for the summer of 2023, in Lisbon.
In each national diocese, the symbols will be there for a month, and the last one to receive them will be Lisbon, in July 2023.
Before the pilgrimage through the dioceses of Portugal, the WYD symbols will be on pilgrimage in Angola, between next Thursday, July 8, and August 15. In Spain, they will be in the months of September and October, and in Poland on dates yet to be announced.
In 2022, between August 4 and 7, the cross and icon of Our Lady Salus Populi Romani will return to Spain for the European Youth Pilgrimage in Santiago de Compostela.
Traditionally, in the months leading up to each WYD, "the symbols go on pilgrimage to proclaim the Gospel and accompany young people, in a special way, in the realities in which they live," adds a note about the initiative.
With a height of 3.8 meters, the Pilgrim Cross, built for the Holy Year in 1983, was entrusted by John Paul II to young people on Palm Sunday of the following year, to be taken around the world. Since then, the pilgrim cross, made of wood, has begun a pilgrimage that has taken it to almost 90 countries.
"It has been transported on foot, by boat and even by unusual means such as sledges, cranes or tractors. She has passed through the jungle, visited churches, juvenile detention centers, prisons, schools, universities, hospitals, monuments, and shopping malls. Along the way he faced many obstacles: from airline strikes to transportation difficulties, such as not being able to travel because he couldn't fit on any of the available planes," the same note says, adding that "in 1985 he was in Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic, at the time when Europe was divided by the iron curtain, and was there as a sign of communion with the Pope. Shortly after September 11, 2001, he traveled to Ground Zero in New York, where the terrorist attacks that killed almost 3000 people took place. He also went to Rwanda in 2006, after the country was ravaged by civil war.
The icon of Our Lady Salus Populi Romani, which depicts the Virgin Mary with the Child in her arms, is 1.20 meters high and 80 centimeters wide, and is associated with one of the most popular Marian devotions in Italy.
"It is an ancient tradition to carry it in procession through the streets of Rome to ward off dangers and misfortune or to put an end to plagues. The original icon is in the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome and is visited by Pope Francis who prays there and leaves a bouquet of flowers before and after each apostolic trip," adds the document released by the WYD2023 press office.
The Lisbon 2023 World Youth Day, for which more than a million young people from around the world are expected, will take place on the grounds of the Tagus River bank, north of Parque das Nações, and is expected to be closed by the Pope.
Originally scheduled for the summer of 2022, the initiative was postponed a year due to the covid-19 pandemic.
