Vatican City.- Pope Leo XIV will preside over the massive closing mass of the Jubilee of Youth on Sunday, August 3, which will be held on the Tor Vergata campus, on the outskirts of Rome, a venue prepared to accommodate tens of thousands of faithful, the Vatican press office reported this Thursday.
The Jubilee of Young People, which will be held between July 28 and August 3, is one of the most outstanding events of the Holy Year dedicated to hope, convened by Pope Francis before his death on April 21.
The Sunday mass will be the final act of a week of celebrations and will take place after the Saturday vigil, in which thousands of young people will spend the night in the same enclosure, of about 814,000 square meters.
For this great gathering, Rome City Council is preparing a large security operation and a complex logistical deployment, which includes giant screens, audio and video towers, and a central area with a 1,400 m2 altar-stage where the monumental arch used during the Jubilee of Youth of the year 2000 with Pope John Paul II will be reinstalled.
The pontiff's August calendar also includes his presence in Castel Gandolfo, where he will spend his vacation between July 6 and 20, thus resuming a tradition interrupted by his predecessor.
Leo XIV will return to this town during the August bank holiday to preside over, on Friday 15th, the mass for the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the pontifical parish of Santo Tomás de Villanueva and the Angelus prayer and on Sunday 17th for, again, the recitation of the Marian prayer and that same afternoon he will return to the Vatican.
On September 7, the Pope will preside over the long-awaited canonization in St. Peter's Square of the young Italian Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 at the age of 15 and is known as the "millennial saint" for his evangelization work through the internet, and of the also Italian Pier Giorgio Frassati, a layperson committed to the poorest.
Acutis was to be canonized on April 27th during the Jubilee of Adolescents, but the ceremony was postponed after the death of Francis.
Frassati, for his part, was going to be declared a saint on July 27 during the Jubilee of Youth, but Leo XIV decided to combine both celebrations into a single joint ceremony in September.