Catholic youth brave heat to see Pope Francis in Lisbon

Pope Francis was greeted by an estimated 1.5 million Catholic youth Saturday as he drove through the Portuguese capital Lisbon to arrive at a riverside park for a Saturday evening vigil.

Those in attendance at the newly created Parque Tejo — situated on a former landfill — braved scorching temperatures that reached 38 degrees Celsius (roughly 100 degrees Fahrenheit) as they waited for hours to pray with the pontiff.

Worshippers at Saturday's World Youth Day event, dubbed "Catholic Woodstock," were sprayed with water to keep them cool as the sun blazed on them.

A special app for the event urged participants to hydrate and use sunscreen.

The 86-year-old pope arrived at the event in an open so-called popemobile, weaving his way through a throng of young worshippers for half an hour as they chanted "We are the pope's youths!"

Many of those who attended the Saturday vigil said they would sleep at the site in order to attend the closing mass on Sunday morning.

At the park, the aging pontiff went off script to deliver impassioned remarks to worshippers, much as he had done earlier in the day when praying with some 200,000 faithful at the shrine of Fatima, where the Vatican says the Virgin Mary appeared to three young children in 1917.

At Fatima, the pope prayed the rosary with sick and disabled youths. While there, he told them: "This little chapel where we find ourselves, is like a beautiful image of the Church, welcoming, without doors. The Church does not have doors, so that everyone can enter."

Concern has been voiced, among other things, about Pope Francis' eyesight, though a Vatican spokesman said that this had nothing to do with him opting to shun prepared remarks at Fatima.

Pope Francis later posted remarks on the social media site X — formerly Twitter — saying that he had prayed for the "Church and the world, especially for countries at war" while at the shrine.

Created by Pope John Paul II in 1986, World Youth Day is the Catholic Church's largest gathering and staged in a different city around the globe every three years.

This year's event was originally scheduled to take place in 2022, but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pope Francis has previously attended iterations in Rio de Janeiro, Krakow and Panama.

js/msh (AFP, Reuters)