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Inmates will build World Youth Day confessionals

The Park of Forgiveness, part of the so-called City of Joy of WYD, will be open from August 1 to August 4, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, with priests from many nationalities



The confessionals to be used in the Park of Forgiveness of the World Youth Day Lisbon 2023, in August, will be built by inmates of the prisons of Coimbra, Paços de Ferreira and Porto, reported the Local Organizing Committee (LOC).

For this purpose, a collaboration protocol was established with the General Directorate of Reintegration and Prison Services, reported the digital newspaper 7Margens on Thursday, February 16, which disclosed the image of the 150 structures that will be installed in Jardim Vasco da Gama, in Belém.

"With this collaboration we intend to contribute to the promotion of social reintegration of these prisoners when they return to active life, through professional training, work and interaction with the community," said the COL, quoted by 7Margens.

Most of the confessionals will have neither a kneeler nor a grille or a fixed partition between penitents and confessors (with the exception of 20 of the 150 structures), based on a "simple and small structure", with a silhouette referring to the design of an open house.

The Park of Forgiveness, which is part of the so-called City of Joy of WYD, will operate between August 1 and 4, between 10:00 am and 6:00 pm, with priests of multiple nationalities.

Lisbon was the city chosen by Pope Francis for the next edition of World Youth Day, which will take place between August 1 and 6 of this year, with the main ceremonies taking place in Parque Tejo, north of Parque das Nações, on the riverside of the Tagus, in the municipalities of Lisbon and Loures.

WYD was born from the initiative of Pope John Paul II, after the success of the meeting promoted in 1985, in Rome, during the International Year of Youth. The first edition took place in 1986, in Rome, and has already been held in Buenos Aires (1987), Santiago de Compostela (1989), Czestochowa (1991), Denver (1993), Manila (1995), Paris (1997), Rome (2000), Toronto (2002), Cologne (2005), Sydney (2008), Madrid (2011), Rio de Janeiro (2013), Krakow (2016) and Panama (2019).

This year's edition, which will be closed by the Pope, was originally scheduled for 2022, but was postponed due to the covid-19 pandemic. Pope Francis was the first person to register for WYDLisbon2023, on October 23, 2022, at the Vatican, after the celebration of the Angelus. This gesture marked the worldwide opening of registration for the worldwide youth gathering with the Pope.

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