Dresden (dpa/sn) - The World Youth Day of the Catholic Church wants to deal primarily with questions of ecology and sustainability in Lisbon at the beginning of August. The Osnabrück auxiliary bishop Johannes Wübbe, as chairman of the youth commission of the German Bishops' Conference, pointed out on Tuesday that Pope John Paul II had invited Christians to an "ecological conversion" in order to make the goods of the earth permanently available to everyone and to protect creation . Pope Francis took up this idea and described the environment and nature as the heritage and responsibility of everyone.
For this reason, the Portuguese World Youth Day Foundation, in cooperation with the Global Tree Initiative, launched a campaign to plant trees worldwide. The aim is to raise awareness of biodiversity and climate change, said Wübbe. At the same time, part of the ecological footprint caused by major events such as World Youth Day should be reduced. The young people from Germany are also aware of their responsibility. Many would take a bus trip lasting several days to avoid having to travel by plane.
World Youth Day will take place from August 1 to 6 - for the first time since the 2019 meeting in Panama. About 7,000 young people from Germany want to take part, worldwide there should be about 400,000. Young people could "make the experience of the universal church" there, said Heinrich Timmerevers, bishop of the Dresden-Meissen diocese. Even if the languages are different, there is a great deal of togetherness and understanding across all languages. The meeting should also give a strong testimony for peace.
According to Matthias Kopp, spokesman for the German Bishops' Conference, it is still unclear how many Russian Catholics are arriving. In Lisbon, however, they want to bring Russian and Ukrainian young people together in a good way.
