Establishment of an International Youth Advisory Body

On the Feast of Christ the King, the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life is happy to announce the establishment of an International Youth Advisory Body made up of 20 young people from different regions of the world and some international movements, associations and communities. A specific request was made in the Final Document of the 2018 Synod for the creation of an entity like this in order to reinforce the work being done by the Youth Office of the Dicastery (cf. no. 123).

Those appointed as members for the next three years are:

Béatrice CAMARA (Guinea), Moses OJOK (Uganda), Dominique YON (South Africa), Brenda NORIEGA (USA), Joseph Edward SAN JOSE (Canada), Sofía Beatriz CRUZ ESTRADA (El Salvador), Natalia GARCÍA JIMÉNEZ (Puerto Rico), Ariel Alejandro ROJAS HERNÁNDEZ (Chile), Agatha Lydia NATANIA (Indonesia), Jesvita Princy QUADRAS (India), Makoto YAMADA (Japan), Tilen ČEBULJ (Slovenia), Chiara VAN VOORST (Netherlands), Émile ABOU CHAAR (Lebanon), Ashleigh GREEN (Australia), Carina BAUMGARTNER (Salesian Youth Movement, Austria), Lucas Ricardo MARÇAL RAMOS (Fazenda da Esperança, Brazil), Lucas PETIT NAVARRO (Taizé Community, France), Tommaso SERENI (Catholic Action International Forum, Italy), Tomás VIRTUOSO (Youth Teams of Our Lady, Portugal).

These young people were involved in different phases of the synodal process. This included the International Youth Forum organised in June this year by the Dicastery to encourage the implementation of the apostolic exhortation Christus vivit.

The group will have an important consultative and proposal-making role to play. They will assist the Dicastery with issues related to youth ministry and other topics of more general interest. The first meeting is scheduled for April 2020 in Rome.