The next Youth Day will take place in India in 2020, the second time the South Asian nation will be hosting the continental-level Catholic Church event since 2003. Card. Oswald Gracias made the announcement on August 5 at the end of the concluding Mass of the 7th Asian Youth Day (AYD7), which he presided over in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
The venue of the AYD8 will be discussed and decided upon by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI). Cardinal Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, together with Indian Church officials and some of the Indian youth delegation received the simple bamboo AYD cross from their Indonesian counterparts for the next AYD to take place in 3 years’ time.
Differences cannot separate us. Among those who flanked Cardinal Gracias, the main celebrant, at the altar were Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila and Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta, who delivered the homily in Bahasa Indonesia.
“We do realize our differences: We are of different nationalities, different languages, different cultures, and so on,” noted the archbishop who is president of Indonesia’s bishops’ conference (KWI).
“However, in this event, we do realize and experience that those differences cannot separate us, but the differences show the richness of the united humanity instead. It proves that the power of faith, hope and love unites us.” Arch Suharyo wished that the AYD7 help the young people to “diligently and faithfully live out the Gospel so that we may be filled with the joy of the Gospel.” “Thus, our life could mirror the glory of the Lord, which changes our lives,” he said.
