Churches, halls, sports fields and
auditoriums will all be turned into venues for the World Youth Day 2013
catecheses in Brazil’s capital, Rio de Janeiro.The WYD events will be held in 273 venues, known as “Catechesis headquarters” across 10 areas of the city, in dioceses such as Niterói, Nova Iguaçu and Duque de Caxias.
The Metropolitan Cathedral of São Sebastião in the centre of Rio and one of the pavilions in the Riocentro exhibition and convention centre in the Jacarepaguá area will be hosting the largest number of pilgrims.
They both have a capacity of 5000 Portuguese speaking pilgrims.
Across the whole city, catecheses will be given in Portuguese and Spanish, the two most widely spoken languages among pilgrims.
There will be 133 venues offering catecheses in Portuguese and 50 in Spanish. Other venues will be split as such: 25 venues have been allocated to English language catecheses, 15 to Italian, 15 to French, 8 to German and 5 to Polish catecheses.
The catechesis will be held in 20 different languages, including Arabic, Croatian, Danish, Slovenian, Greek, Czech and Russian.
The Sur, Urbano, Norte and Niterói regions have the highest concentration of local pilgrims who speak these languages, according to the WYD Rio 2013 website.
According to Fr. Leandro, that facilitates the attendance of young foreigners to their consulates, in case the need for this arises.
Fr. Leandro Lenin, executive director of the Pastoral Preparation Department and Catechesis, said the total number of events could reach 300 as initially reported by the organization, if the registrations of pilgrims increases during the weeks leading up to the event.
"Young people, even those who enrol for the event at the last moment, want to participate in this very special time of formation. The organization will do its best to ensure these pilgrims have the opportunity to access it," he said.