According to the official website of World Youth Day Rio – Churches, halls, gymnasiums and auditoriums have been reserved for catechesis during WYD Rio2013. The 273 events are divided in ten different regions in Rio de Janeiro and neighboring dioceses, called subsites, such as Niterói, Nova Iguaçu and Duque de Caxias.
According to Father Leandro Lenin, executive director of the Pastoral Preparation Department and Catechesis, the number of events can reach the 300 reported initially by the organization, if the registrations of pilgrims increases during the weeks leading up to the event. “Young people, even those who enroll for the event at the last moment, want to participate in this very special time of formation. The organization will do its best to ensure these pilgrims have the opportunity to access it.”
The premises will be called “Catechesis headquarters” and are organized in the following neighborhoods: Jacarepaguá, Norte, Suburbano, Urbano, Sul, Leopoldina, Oeste, Nova Iguaçu, Niterói and Caxias. A parish may have more than one venue and the mix of different languages in the same parish aims to promote cultural diversity and help pilgrim’s distribution between headquarters and parishes.
In every region, WYD will offer catechesis in Portuguese and Spanish, the languages used by most of the pilgrims. There will be 133 events in Portuguese and 50 in Spanish. The rest of the languages will be distributed as follows: 25 catechesis in English; 15 in Italian and French; 8 in German; and 5 in Polish. In total, the catechesis will be held in 20 different languages, including Arabic, Croatian, Danish, Slovenian, Greek, Czech and Russian. The Sur, Urbano, Norte and Niterói regions have the highest concentration of local pilgrims who speak these languages. According to Father Leandro, that facilitates the attendance of young foreigners to their consulates, in case the need for this arises. The pilgrims will be directed to the catecheses that are closer to their accommodation.
>>> See the map according to language
In the catechesis venues, the pilgrims that choose to be fed by WYD will receive their breakfast every morning.
Pilgrims with deficiency will have one catechesis, designed especially for them. It will be the only one with simultaneous translation to the seven official languages of WYD.
Curiosities
The Metropolitan Cathedral of São Sebastião, in downtown Rio de Janeiro, and one of the pavilions of the Riocentro convention center located in Jacarepaguá, are the locations that will hold the biggest catecheses, both of them in Portuguese and for over 5,000 pilgrims.
The region with the largest number of events will be the west, with 49 places holding these events for Portuguese and Spanish speaking pilgrims. The parish of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, in the region of Santa Cruz, will receive the largest number of catechesis venues, with a total of nine. Another curious fact takes place in the south: only in the regions of Recreo and Barra, ten languages will be present at various sites of catechesis. “It will be a Pentecost” concludes Father Leandro.
Tags: catechesis, World Youth Day, Youth
