VATICAN: Logo for World Youth Day 2023 Unveiled
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
The logo for the next World Youth Day (WYD) to be held in Lisbon, Portugal was unveiled on Friday, October 16, by organizers of the festival when they launched its website.
The logo has a combination of various symbols which include an icon of Blessed Mother Mary, a Rosary and a Cross with colours of Portuguese flag which are Green, Red and yellow.
The Marian logo has been designed to communicate the WYD theme selected by Pope Francis ‘Mary Arose and Went with Haste.’
The theme has been extracted from the Gospel of St. Luke on the Virgin Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth after the Annunciation.
The event of WYD was initially slated for August 2020, but in April, the Vatican through the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life announced its postponement to August 2023 due to Covid-19 pandemic.
“Due to the current health sanitary situation and its consequences on the movement and gathering of people the Holy Father, together with the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life has decided to postpone the 2022 World Youth Day scheduled for Lisbon to August 2023,” Director of the Holy See Press Office, Mr. Matteo Bruni said in April.
World Youth Day is an international gathering of Catholic young people normally about the age of 16-30, from around the world held approximately every 2-3 years in varying host countries.
WYD began with Pope St. John Paul II in 1984 as an outreach to the youth of the world and an occasion for an encounter between the Pope and young people.
Since then, the Conferences in AMECEA region and the entire Church in Africa ensures that their youth participate in the WYD activities.
