World Youth Day - Lisbon 2023 Young Adult Pilgrimage

• Have a week-long pilgrimage experience
• Make room for a personal encounter with Jesus and grow in your faith
• Have a powerful experience of the universal Church with millions of young people from around the world and the Pope
• Meet other young Catholics and build friendships
• Opportunity to spend a day at Fatima, the site of the 1917 apparitions of Our Lady
• Experience the beauty of Lisbon, Portugal
• Optional opportunities for an additional pre-trip extension from Lourdes, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain (with other locations) and an additional optional post-trip extension to Madrid and Avila, Spain.

World Youth Day is a gathering of millions of young people from all over the world with the Pope for a weeklong pilgrimage event, a celebration of young people, an expression of the universal Church and an intense moment of evangelization for the young people of the world.

This international gathering occurs every two, three or four years in a city chosen by the Pope. It was begun by Pope St. John Paul II with its first gathering in Rome in 1986. Since then, World Youth Day has taken place in cities around the world and has proven to be a laboratory of faith, a place of birth for vocations to marriage and consecrated life, and an instrument for the evangelization and transformation of the Church. It aims to provide all participants with a universal Church experience, fostering a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.

World Youth Day is a time of prayer, friendship, celebration, and grace. The Holy Father is welcomed into the city during the week, while pilgrims participate in cultural experiences, catechesis sessions with bishops from around the world, site-seeing, and prayer. In addition to these daily activities, there is typically a Welcome Celebration, a Papal Arrival Celebration, and a Stations of the Cross event. WYD concludes with an evening Vigil of prayer and Adoration with the Holy Father, an overnight sleeping outdoors, followed by Sunday morning mass with the Pope.

For more general information about World Youth Day go here.

World Youth Day traveling with Detroit Catholic Young Adults is for any young adult ages 18-35.

Lisbon, Portugal (also including a full-day tour of Fatima)

July 30 – August 7, 2023

Pilgrims will depart for World Youth Day on Sunday, July 30^th, 2023. WYD events in Lisbon will officially kick off on Tuesday, August 1^st and conclude with the Vigil on Saturday, August 5^th, Concluding Papal mass on Sunday, August 6^th, and the flight home on Monday, August 7^th.

Every World Youth Day, the Archdiocese of Detroit (AOD) organizes a pilgrimage group to travel together for this experience. We are partnering with Corporate Travel for this.

The AOD pilgrimage group is a large group made up of several smaller groups, which are mostly parish leaders who bring youth, young adults, and adult leaders as a smaller group making up the larger AOD pilgrimage group. Sometimes parish groups have opportunities to fundraise and offset the total cost for pilgrims.

If your parish is planning a trip for World Youth Day with the AOD, you may prefer to join their group. However, Detroit Catholic Young Adults (DCYA) also travels as a group within the larger AOD pilgrimage group, and if you are 18-35 years old, you are welcome to join us!

Please read the Trip Details Sheet for details on the itinerary, pricing, payment deadlines, and other important information.

The cost of registration does NOT include the cost of flights. Corporate Travel is organizing group air rates for flights. You will be notified 8-10 months before the trip when group air flights become available. There is no way to know at this time how much flights will cost but they may be around $1500 round trip. You can purchase a group air flight at that time or you can choose to purchase your own flight separately.

If you purchase your own flight separate from the group air, your flight will need to land prior to our group air flight. Otherwise, you will not be able to join the group motorcoach transportation from Madrid airport to Lisbon. You may even want to fly into Madrid the day before if you want to be 100% certain you will be on our transfer motorcoaches. We will not have the motorcoach transfer times until 90 days before the trip. Instead if you purchase the group air flight option, you will guarantee that you will be on the group motorcoach transportation from Madrid to Lisbon.

It is highly recommended that you purchase travel insurance for your trip. You will be able to purchase travel insurance at the time you register. The cost of insurance is additional on top of the cost of registration and could cost up to $181 depending on the type of coverage you choose. If you are also participating in the pre-trip or post-trip, travel insurance may cost more for the additional coverage. Given the unpredictability of changes in global travel at this time, we highly recommend paying for the “cancel for any reason” option for your travel insurance. Later when you purchase your flights, you can add travel insurance protection for your flights as well. For more information on the offered travel insurance coverage go to ctscentral.net/cti-main/travel-protection/.

If you register as a Detroit Catholic Young Adults pilgrim, you agree to attend one Archdiocese of Detroit World Youth Day Info Session, at least two to three Detroit Catholic Young Adults Pilgrimage Group Preparation meetings, and the final logistics meeting with Corporate Travel in the months leading up to World Youth Day in preparation for this pilgrimage. These meetings will provide you with critical information to prepare for the World Youth Day pilgrimage experience and to build connections with your fellow Detroit Catholic Young Adults prior to traveling together.

It is important to understand that World Youth Day is a pilgrimage experience, not a vacation. As a pilgrimage, you will want to be prepared with an attitude and spirit of acceptance of the difficulties and challenges a pilgrimage provides as an opportunity to offer your sacrifices to Our Father in heaven and accepting of the beautiful graces God wants to give you through this time. You might experience tiredness, heat, discomfort, and other challenges. There will be a lot of walking. Particularly on the Saturday, we will be making a long pilgrimage walk with backpacks carrying our personal gear for the night to the Vigil location where we will sleep in a field overnight and celebrate mass with the Pope the next morning. We will not be in tents. At the same time, you will have many opportunities to encounter Jesus, experience joy, meet other young people from around the world, enjoy the beauty of Portugal, build friendships, grow closer to God and receive the special graces and blessings He has planned for you.

When you register, you will see an option for additional pre- and post-trip extensions. Detroit Catholic Young Adults will not be leading a specific group on the pre- or post-trip extensions, but Corporate Travel will be hosting these trips, and if you decide to participate you will be traveling with other young people from possibly the Archdiocese of Detroit and other parts of the US. See details on the Trip Details Sheet.