Panama extends a global welcome to young Catholics

Pilgrims from the United Kingdom and Ireland attending World Youth Day in Panama have spoken of a carnival atmosphere and World Cup-like celebrations sweeping the country.

Young people from parishes in Middlesbrough, Birmingham, Brentwood, East Anglia and Westminster, and from Dublin and Ferns in Ireland, gathered in Panama City this week for preparatory events ahead of the Pope’s arrival on Wednesday.

No official diocesan groups went from Scotland, where a spokesman for the Catholic Church said: “World Youth Day 2019 is scheduled during a busy period in the Scottish academic calendar. Many families and youth groups look forward to celebrating events from home; in classrooms, campuses and parishes across the country.”

In Panama City itself the World Youth Day logo was visible on flags on cars, painted on to the front of chapels, hanging from brightly coloured breeze-block homes and on the T-shirts and hats of locals. Dan Hale, travelling to World Youth Day with Caritas, told The Tablet: “World Youth Days are always celebratory, but the devotional style of Krakow, Poland, in 2016 has definitely given way to more of an excitable, unpredictable, World Cup feel this time around. In part it’s because the local people are so excited about it – the small parish where the Caritas group sleeps on the Caritas office floors welcomes 1,500 pilgrims in homestays. It’s hard not to be excited when you’re welcomed so fully by the community.”

Meanwhile 35 pilgrims from Brentwood diocese, along with Bishop Alan Williams, spent a few days in the neighbouring country of Costa Rica ahead of World Youth Day.

Speaking to The Tablet mid-way through a 17-hour bus journey to Panama City, Fr Dominic Howarth said that World Youth Day banners and flags were strung along the roads from the border with Costa Rica to Panama City. “Everyone we’ve met so far has been nothing but welcoming,” he said.

The pilgrims from Brentwood had been hosted by Catholics in Hatillo, where they attended a Mass celebrated by the Archbishop of San José de Costa Rica, Jose Rafael Quirós. The archbishop told a congregation of pilgrims from some 30 countries: “We believe in a Church without frontiers. We don’t build walls, we build relationships.”

Fr Howarth said: “The youngsters can see that, they’re right here, living it. The universal Church is right here.”