Major Catholic events postponed due to Coronavirus outbreak

Pope Francis, along with the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, has made the decision to postpone both the World Meeting of Families and World Youth Day.

World Youth Day brings together massive crowds of people.

Highlights

By Abigail James
4/23/2020 (5 years ago)

Published in Living Faith

Keywords: World Youth Day, World Meeting of Families, Pope Francis, Coronavirus, Outbreak, Pandemic

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - This decision, which was released in a statement by the Director of the Holy See Press Office, comes after concerns and fears surrounding the Coronavirus outbreak continue to spread, according to Vatican News. 

The World Meeting of Families, originally scheduled to take place in Rome in June 2021, has been re-scheduled for June 2022.

World Youth Day, originally planned to take place in Lisbon in 2022, will now be postponed a year later for August 2023.

In 2016, World Youth Day had an estimated 3 million people in attendance.

These decisions did not come easily, but were made given the current health situation. The consequences of gathering mass crowds of young people and their families were deemed to risky for these events on their originally planned dates.

"We find ourselves afraid and lost," Pope Francis said during his livestreamed prayer service from March 27. "We were caught off-guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented ... all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.