Pope’s World Youth Day agenda includes rare lunch with young, confessions, vigil

Pope Benedict XVI’s agenda for this summer’s World Youth Day in Madrid includes a rare lunch with young Catholics and a session hearing their confessions.

The Vatican on Saturday released the pope’s agenda for the Aug. 18-21 visit, his third to Spain as pope and a focus of his efforts to reawaken the faith in an increasingly indifferent and secular Europe.

Benedict will meet with the Spanish royals as well as Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

But his focus is Catholic youth: he’ll meet with young university professors, young priests and nuns.

A lucky few will have lunch with him; others will confess to him and thousands more will participate in prayer vigils and a Way of the Cross procession before the main World Youth Day Mass on Aug. 21.

 

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