Angola’s Catholic Youth “eager to share faith, represent country” at WYD: Chaplain

Luanda, 12 July, 2023 / 8:06 PM

The Catholic Youth from Angola, who are to take part in the planned World Youth Day (WYD) 2023 are enthusiastic about sharing their faith and representing their country, the Director of the National Office for the Youth Pastoral Ministry at the Episcopal Conference of Angola and São Tomé has said.

“Our youth are eager to share their faith and to represent their country with pride during the World Youth Day in Portugal,” Fr. Armando Pinho Alberto told ACI Africa during the Monday, July 10 interview about the August 1-6 event in Lisbon, Portugal.

The Angolan Catholic youth, Fr. Pinho said, have been prepared to “bring good disposition, their dynamism” at the global event, and in interacting with other youth, they are to “take the cultural heritage that we enjoy in our land to share with others.”

“We will keep the presence of our culture alive there and we will also certainly recover what they will want to give us as a culture, proper to the country, to bring to our land,” the National Youth Chaplain in Angola further said.

Fr. Armando Pinho Alberto. Credit: ACI Africa

He continued, “We have a very long coexistence with Portugal, and I believe that WYD will be for us a reunion of people who are not strangers to each other, people who have lived together since ancient times, people who know each other very well.”

The Angolan Catholic Priest said that he alongside Angola’s Catholic youth look forward to learning “new ways of being”.

“It will also be a learning experience of new models, new ways of being because in our caravan there are many young people who are participating for the first time in a meeting of this nature,” Fr. Pinho said. 

He went on to highlight preparations for the global event in Portugal, saying that the official delegation of Angola comprising 615 young people will be led by Bishop Belmiro Cuica Chissengueti of Cabinda Diocese.

“We are in the process of concluding the acquisition of visas for our pilgrims who will participate in the World Youth Day,” he said.

The Angolan Catholic youth Chaplain thanked the Portuguese Embassy in Angola for facilitating the acquisition of visas for the Angolan pilgrims, who he said are expected to leave São Tomé and Príncipe for Lisbon between July 26 and July 31, and return on August 11.

João Vissesse contributed to the writing of this article.