Record Participation at the WYD: 400 Cubans Will Go to Panama

Over four hundred young Cubans will participate in the World Youth Day in Panama (22-27 January 2019). For the Cuban Church, this presence is a record. Thus, for the first time, young people will be able to share friendship and experiences around the testimony of the Gospel with peers from all over the world.

The statement released by the Organizing Committee of the Cuban Church informs that the young people already began preparing for the ecclesial event in October and November 2017, when the pilgrim cross and the icon of the Virgin Mary—symbols of WYD—arrived in the country.

Msgr. Álvaro Veira, of the Episcopal Commission for Youth Pastoral Care in Cuba, is confident that the participation of young people in the WYD will have “a multiplying effect and direct impact on the activity of evangelization” by the Cuban Church.

In recent days, the president of the Cuban Episcopal Conference (COC) declared that the Church of the Caribbean island received with joy Pope Francis’ announcement of the choice of Panama as the site because its territory carries out the mission of “being a bridge and a point of union between the nations.”