More than 750 young people traveled from various parishes of the Madeira archipelago to attend the World Youth Day (WYD) Lisbon 2023. Before the Way of the Cross, on Friday, August 4, the pilgrims gathered at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the district of Santo António, in a welcoming ceremony that included the presence of Cardinal Dom Tolentino de Mendonça, also from Madeira. 

Dom Tolentino, who is the mayor of the Dicastery for Culture and Education in the Roman Curia, said that it is “wonderful” to look at young people and see them as “the Spring of the Church”. The Cardinal explained that “the Church is not just 80 years old. The church is 15 years old, the church is 20 years old. The church has your face, it has your name, and how beautiful the church is”, he explained, leaving a challenge to those present: “Discover the Church, fall in love with the Church, carry the Church forward”, he said. 

In a festive welcome, the Cardinal spoke about dreams and asked those who were present to fight and believe in that “dream that will be the seed that God places in our lives and makes it bloom”, he said. 

Finally, Dom Tolentino de Mendonça said that “the Church needs a wide range of vocations. The Church needs families, needs couples, needs women and men, who live their family as a project of love, a project at the service of life, a project of openness to the future, the Church needs Christian families that are the root and the brain. The Church needs vocations of consecration. It needs girls who say: I want a life of consecration to the Lord”, he concluded. 

The bishop of Funchal, Dom Nuno Brás, presided over the welcome and challenged the young people to reflect on the words of Pope Francis.