Romania: registrations begun for the Lisbon WYD. Father Roca (CER) to SIR, “attending is an opportunity to rediscover the history and value of the World Youth Days”

“In all the dioceses and eparchies of the Catholic Church of Romania, registrations have begun to attend the World Youth Day in Lisbon”, Father Felix Roca, national director of the youth pastoral service, confirms to SIR. On Monday 23rd January, a meeting was held on line with the diocesan directors and with Virgil Bercea, the bishop in charge of the youth service of the Episcopal Conference of Romania (CER). “We have completed the last updates and have heard about the problems. A lot of young Romanians are excitedly looking forward to the Lisbon WYD. The costs for going from Romania to Portugal are high, and this might dissuade some from taking part in it. So, the dioceses and eparchies of Romania will try to find some solutions to help the young people who are involved in the life of the Church and who would like to attend the WYD but do not have the means”, Father Roca explains. In addition, also because of the cost, the dioceses of Satu Mare and Timisoara opened the registrations for just one month to prevent the cost of flight tickets rising; the eparchy of Oradea decided to attend only the events in Lisbon; and the archdiocese of Bucharest will send two groups of young people, one just to Lisbon, the other to Porto too, for the Days in the dioceses. However, CER will come up with some initiatives for the young people who stay at home too. “Attending is an opportunity to rediscover the history and value of the WYDs and take their message forward”, Father Roca added.
Valentina Bombelli