THE YOUTH JUBILEE in Rome that started Monday, July 28, started with a big bang as around half a million young people from different parts of the world gathered at its opening. This is the first massive gathering for history’s first American pope, Leo XIV.
This is considered as the biggest event of the 2025 Holy Year, a weeklong Jubilee celebration for young Catholics that will sorely test their tolerance for heat and the Eternal City’s ability to provide public services, security and logistical support during its peak tourist season.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, Vatican Jubilee chief, said this opening crowd represent around 68 percent of the young people who registered to attend hail from European countries. Young pilgrims from 146 countries are expected.
Italy’s Lazio Region vice president Roberta Angelilli commented that this is the collective effort and a big institutional test.”
EVENT HIGHLIGHTS
Vatican officials said the highlight of the week-long event that culminates on Sunday, August 3. This is the two-day vigil service from August second to the third which also features an outdoor overnight slumber party and morning Mass to be presided over by Pope Leo XIV himself.Â
This is going to be held on the same dusty field on the outskirts of Rome where Saint John Paul II led the World Youth Day in 2000, an even larger gathering of some 2 million young Catholics in that millennial Jubilee year.
With temperatures next weekend expected to soar between 32 to 34 centigrade (90 to 93 fahrenheit), organizers have lined up five million bottles of water, 2,660 drinking water stations and 70 giant water cannons that are normally used for dust control during building demolitions to spritz the young pilgrims in trying to keep them cool.
SECURITY AND LOGISTICS
Italian and Vatican organizers have prepared a massive security and logistical framework with outlined plans representing the biggest technological setup ever in Italy. Four thousand police and firefighters have been called up to provide security, with Spanish, French and Polish law enforcement agencies sending teams to help out, given the large number of pilgrims expected from those countries.Â
In addition to law enforcement, 3,000 civil protection volunteers, 500 Vatican volunteers and 4,300 Jubilee stewards are on hand to shepherd the young people around.
A medevac helicopter, 43 ambulances, and 10 mobile health positions are in position at the Tor Vergata field in case pilgrims fall ill.
TRANSPORT REINFORCEMENT
Rome’s notoriously insufficient public transport system is being reinforced to provide nearly around-the-clock service and sanitation workers are clocking overtime to the tune of 4,600 shifts.
There will be 2,760 portable toilets, plus 158 for disabled people, spread over the event space of 52 hectares (128 acres), officials said.
Officials are also closing the airspace over the Tor Vergata field to civilian aircraft and drones even as 122 surveillance cameras have been put up to keep watch on the proceedings.
“This is an event that because of its importance requires exceptional security measures. We don’t have any signs of negative attention to the event, but the international situation, the various tensions and the magnitude, significance and beauty of the event require us to be very careful,” Rome’s Prefect Lamberto Giannini told told the media at a Vatican press conference.
CELEBRATION OF CATHOLICISM
Archbishop Fisichella cited that the Youth Jubilee, which resembles a World Youth Day, comes at the halfway point in the Vatican’s 2025 Holy Year, a once-every-quarter-century celebration of Catholicism that brings millions of pilgrims to Rome.Â
“The event has assumed many characteristics of a World Youth Day, the Catholic youth rally taking place every three years that was launched by John Paul and maintained by every pope since. Heat waves and the invariable health issues that accompany them have become an integral part of youth days, since they are always scheduled during summer when young people are typically on vacation,” the Jubilee chief clarified.