After 26 years, World Youth
Day (WYD), the most important of all Catholic events, will return to a
Latin American country in 2013: the first of these international events
took place in Buenos Aires in 1987.
Today at the end of the mass at the “Cuatro
Vientos” airport in Madrid that gathered 1.5 million people together and
marked the official end to the WYD 2011 Pope Benedict XVI announced
today that the next WYD will be held in Rio de Janeiro.
“I am happy to announce that the next World Youth
Day will take place in 2013 in Rio de Janeiro. We pray to the Father
from now onwards that he will help all those who bring it about,” he
said in Spanish.
The announcement brought outcries of joy among
young Latin Americans present, especially the large group of Brasilians
who were in the areas close to the High Altar at “Cuatro Vientos”.
The meeting in Rio de Janeiro will be the 27th World Youth Day event, a celebration started by John Paul II and held for the first time in Rome, in 1986.
Karol Wojtyla always wanted these gatherings to
take place not just in Rome, but also in different cities around the
world; for this reason he called the world's youth to Buenos Aires in
1987.
On that occasion the theme of WYD was: “We recognise and believe
in the love God has for us.”
The meeting in Buenos Aires was the first of these events held abroad and was
a kind of testing ground.
For this reason, the meeting only lasted a
day and was concentrated around young people meeting the Pope.
Two years
later in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) - 19 and 20 August 1989 - a new
formula was applied that remains the same today: religious and cultural
activities before the main celebrations with the Bishop of Rome.
Since then, it was also established that the international events of WYD should take place every two years.
Poland
had its turn in 1991 (Czestochowa), then the United Stated in 1993
(Denver), the Philippines in 1995 (Manila) and France in 1997 (Paris).
Then it was decided that the event should jump
directly to the year 2000, and that the day on which it was to be held,
was to coincide with the Great Jubilee.
Rome was chosen for this reason.
Then in 2002, in Toronto (Canada), it was decided to extend the period
to three years between each international WYD event.
So, in 2005, Germany (Cologne) held the meeting, then it came to Australia (Sydney) in 2008 and again Spain (Madrid) in 2011.
The next WYD had to be brought forward to 2013
in Rio de Janeiro, because the Brazilians will be busy during 2014
with the World Cup and in 2016 with the Olympic Games.