It’s not a World Youth Day, but 40 youth and young adults from the Philadelphia region will experience a week that will feel like one of those seminal events.
The local contingent, led by Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez and Auxiliary Bishop John J. McIntyre, will arrive in Rome on Sunday, July 27 for eight days and nights encompassing a pilgrimage of a lifetime during the Jubilee of Young People.
The week-plus experience includes three encounters with Chicago native and Villanova alumnus Pope Leo XIV.
The first is on Wednesday, July 30 with a papal audience, while the others take place Saturday night, Aug. 2 with a night prayer service, and Sunday, Aug. 3 for Mass at Tor Vegata southeast of Rome, with approximately 1 million other Catholics.
The pilgrimage comes as part of the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, with the theme “Pilgrims of Hope” proclaimed by the late Pope Francis.
Pauline Father Timothy Tarnacki, the director of the archdiocesan Office for Ministry with Young Adults (OMYA), and the office’s Associate Director Andrea Mueller clearly believe this experience will be no ordinary trip.
“The beauty about a pilgrimage is that you get to accompany the people, so you get to walk alongside with them, said Father Tarnacki. “You get to help them, maybe at some point show them the way, but just walking with them and witnessing the transformation that happens in their life.”
“That’s what our journey with Christ is all about,” said Mueller, “surrendering ourselves more fully to him, and that’s why pilgrimages are such a deep experience of connection with Christ. We have to rely more fully on him, and we’re not experiencing our everyday life. Everything is new to us.”
The events of this pilgrimage involve a bursting itinerary, with daily Mass found between:
- Venerating the relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis and viewing the body of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati;
- Encountering the Holy Doors of St. Peter’s Basilica, plus visits to St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. John Lateran basilicas;
- Visiting the tombs of St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Monica and St. Maria Goretti among many others;
- Witnessing the pillar where Christ was scourged, located at Santa Prassede;
- Seeing the relics of the Passion at Santa Croce;
- Viewing the relics of St. John Paul II and St. Faustina.
All these experiences take place before an overnight campout Saturday night at Tor Vegata and a Mass there on Sunday with a million of their closest friends in faith.
“Sometimes we step out of our own little world and we get to discover how faith is being lived in other cultures, in other countries, in different languages,” said Father Tarnacki. “That can be so inspiring just to realize that there are things that we have in common, and how the Gospel really unites us.”
Mueller points out that the 40 Philadelphia attendees will also celebrate a separate Mass with others from different groups in the Delaware Valley, plus an all-American gathering of about 4,000 Catholic young people organized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They will be joined by Cardinal James Harvey, Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, and Bishop Edward Burns of Dallas, Texas.
“It’s focusing (on) how we are living this out within our own context,” Mueller said. “Are we as young adults becoming the future of the Church and bringing that back to our own context?”
This event is not officially a World Youth Day event, but both Andrea and Father Tarnacki say this experience will follow a similar trajectory, especially with the excitement of the presence of the new Holy Father.
“I was just looking up the numbers here, and in Portugal there were 1.5 million people,” Mueller said. “We’ve been calling it a mini World Youth Day, but it’s not that ‘mini’ anymore at this point, given that there’ll be 1 million people.
“This is definitely a unique opportunity given our new pope, because with the experience of World Youth Day, so many people come back with an experience of feeling more connected to the Holy Father. So many of us are curious to know what the Holy Father has in store with us, what he has to share with us, and I think in particular young people.”
Father Tarnacki attended that 2023 World Youth Day event in Portugal, where he experienced “how much of a transformation happens at a pilgrimage like that,” he said.
“It’s definitely a little bit chaotic when you have 1 million people or more in one place, but it’s really such a grace to be able to see that the Church is young and to be inspired by this, that there are so many other youth and young adults who are living out their faith and who are making a pilgrimage.”
For the 40 young Philadelphians who Father Tarnacki knows will be wearing Super Bowl champion Eagles gear when they see the Holy Father, “It’s going to definitely be an experience of trusting and hoping in the Lord,” he said.
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