NEWSWATCH | KAIROS GLOBAL | SEPTEMBER 2023

Some of the interesting moments of World Youth Day 2023

1. As part of the WYD celebrations, Pope Francis heard the confessions of three young people in Reconciliation Park on August 4. He took about 10 minutes to hear the private confessions of the young people. One heartwarming photo from this experience was a young woman being embraced by the Holy Father after her confession.

   
   

Maria da Conceição Brito Mendonça visited Pope at the nunciature of Lisbon | PC: CNA

2. On August 4 at the nunciature in Lisbon, Pope Francis met with Maria da Conceição Brito Mendonça, a 106-year-old woman who was born on the day of the apparitions of Fátima, May 13, 1917.

An estimated 200,000 people attended the pope's rosary in Fatima, Portugal, on Aug. 5, 2023. | Vatican Media

3. Pope Francis paid a heartfelt visit to Fátima on August 5. While he was there, he prayed the Rosary with young people with disabilities and placed a bouquet of roses and a golden rosary at the feet of the statue of Our Lady of Fátima. ‘Dear brothers and sisters, today let us feel the presence of Mother Mary, the mother who will always tell us, “Do whatever Jesus tells you.” She points us to Jesus,’ the Pope said.

4. In front of an estimated 800,000 people, Pope Francis shared a powerful message to the youth during the Stations of the Cross on August 4. He said: ‘We’ve all cried in life and continue to do so. Jesus is with us; he cries with us and accompanies us in the darkness that leads to tears. With tenderness, he wipes our tears.’

5. Pope Francis ended WYD at a Mass with an estimated 1.5 million people. However, before he left, he had a public address with the nearly 25,000 volunteers who kept the international event running from start to finish. One particular photo from the meeting stood out — a young volunteer gave the pope a warm embrace.

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Miracle at Fátima? World Youth Day pilgrim receives her sight after Communion at Mass

Our Lady of Fatima statue in Fatima, Portugal. | Photo courtesy of Shrine of Fatima

‘I opened my eyes and I could see perfectly,’ said Jimena, a 16-year-old Spanish World Youth Day pilgrim who said she miraculously recovered her sight after receiving the Eucharist at Fátima, Portugal, during a Mass there. This possible miracle has moved hearts and filled with hope all those who have been following the events at WYD, which brought together more than a million young people in the Portuguese capital.

Jimena traveled to Lisbon from Madrid with a group from Opus Dei. During the days prior, relatives and acquaintances of the young woman organised a novena to pray to Our Lady of the Snows, whose feast day is commemorated August 5, the same day she recovered her sight.

For two-and-a-half years, Jimena has suffered a loss of sight due to a myopia problem that left her with a 95% vision loss. On the morning of August 5, when the Holy Father was also praying the Rosary at the Fátima shrine, Jimena received what she herself describes as a ‘great gift’ from the Virgin Mary.

Not long after having recovered her sight, Jimena told the Spanish radio station COPE that she woke up that morning ‘as I have been getting up for two-and-a-half years, seeing super blurry, very badly.’ She explained that she had gone to Mass with her friends ‘because we are at WYD and after receiving Communion I began to cry a lot, because it was the last day of the novena and I wanted to be cured and I had very much asked God please [cure me].’

‘When I opened my eyes, I could see perfectly,’ the young woman continued, “’t was overwhelming; very many thanks must be given for the miracle, because I saw the altar, the tabernacle, my girlfriends were there, and I could see them perfectly.’ In addition, she said that she was able to read the novena prayer that she was praying and that she still reads ‘quite well’ — she hadn’t forgotten at all how to read.

The young woman said she is ‘super happy’ and thanked all those who were part of the prayer group. ‘This has been a test of faith; the Virgin has given me a great gift that I will not forget,’ she said.

In an August 6 statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Cardinal Juan José Omella, the archbishop of Barcelona and president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, referred to the possible miracle as ‘a grace from God’ during the press conference at the end of WYD held at Eduardo VII park in Lisbon. The cardinal said he was able to speak with Jimena on a video call and that she explained what happened in a natural and unaffected manner. ‘The girl was very excited; she had been blind for a while and she had been learning the Braille method for two or three years,’ he said. The prelate also noted that Jimena ‘had to read the prayer of thanksgiving at Mass that day with the Madrid group’ and that, after receiving Communion, she was able to read it without any problem.

The young woman also told the cardinal that they had been praying for ‘nine days asking the Virgin for her healing.’ The cardinal pointed out that ‘then the doctors will have to assess it, what it was like, if it existed, if it could be cured or not. But for now for the girl that has been a major event. Let’s say a miracle. She didn’t see and now she sees. Now the doctors will be able to say the rest, but she has gone home seeing. Well, she sees, blessed be God.’ Omella said he was ‘really struck’ by other testimonies that took place during WYD from young people who ‘have also recovered their interior vision.’

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Vatican announces that artificial intelligence will be theme of next World Day of Peace

Image Credit: Blue Planet Studio

The Vatican announced that Pope Francis’ annual peace message for 2024 will focus on artificial intelligence (AI).

A statement from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development on August 8 described an ‘urgent need’ to guide the development and use of artificial intelligence in a responsible way, requiring that ‘ethical reflection be extended to the sphere of education and law.’

‘Pope Francis calls for an open dialogue on the meaning of these new technologies, endowed with disruptive possibilities and ambivalent effects,’ it said.

The Vatican office noted that artificial intelligence technologies are having ‘a rapidly increasing impact on human activity, personal and social life, politics and the economy’ and called for vigilance to ensure that technological development contributes to ‘the promotion of justice and peace in the world.’

Years before the widely-popular release of the GPT-4 chatbot system, developed by the San Francisco start-up OpenAI, the Vatican was already heavily involved in the conversation of artificial intelligence ethics, hosting high-level discussions with scientists and tech executives on the ethics of artificial intelligence in 2016 and 2020.

Pope Francis has repeatedly called for making ‘the intrinsic dignity of every man and every woman the key criterion in evaluating emerging technologies.’

Last month, the Vatican’s education and culture office published an introduction to a 140-page ethics handbook for the tech industry published by the Institute for Technology, Ethics, and Culture (ITEC) at California’s Santa Clara University. The World Day of Peace — instituted by St Paul VI in 1968 — is celebrated each year on January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. The pope provides a message for the occasion, which is sent by the Vatican to foreign governments around the world.

In last year’s message for the World Day of Peace, Pope Francis asked: ‘What did we learn from the pandemic?’

‘Artificial Intelligence and Peace,’ will be the official theme of the 2024 World Day of Peace. The Pope’s message is expected to be released publicly in early December.