“World Youth Day is an invitation to all the young people of the world to experience God,” Bishop Américo Aguiar told ACI Digital, clarifying comments he made in a July 6 interview.

The auxiliary bishop of Lisbon and new president of the WYD Lisbon 2023 Foundation, who Pope Francis recently named a cardinal, told ACI Digital that his comments were made in the context of a longer interview in which he was quoted as saying, “We don’t want to convert the young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that at all.”

In the interview, the bishop said that in his opinion the intention of World Youth Day is to have young people journey together, respecting their diversity.

World Youth Day will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 1-6.

Bishop Aguiar took part in an interview with RTP Notícias three days before Pope Francis announced the creation of 21 new cardinals.

For the cardinal-designate, the goal is to enable each young person to say: “‘I think differently, I feel differently, I organize my life in a different way, but we are brothers and we go together to build the future.’ This is the main message of this encounter with the living Christ that the Pope wants to provide to young people.”

“We don’t want to convert the young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that at all,” Bishop Aguiar continued. “We want it to be normal for a young Catholic Christian to say and bear witness to who he is or for a young Muslim, Jew, or of another religion to also have no problem saying who he is and bearing witness to it, and for a young person who has no religion to feel welcome and to perhaps not feel strange for thinking in a different way.”

The prelate stressed that it’s important “that we all understand that differences are a richness and the world will be objectively better if we are capable of placing in the hearts of all young people this certainty of Fratelli Tutti, brothers all, that the Pope has made an enormous effort so that this enters the hearts of all.”

Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti was published Oct. 4, 2020. It is the third of his pontificate and is dedicated to “fraternity and social friendship.”

World Youth Day was instituted by Pope John Paul II in 1985. It has always been an opportunity for young people from all over the world to personally encounter Christ and choose to give themselves completely to his service in the priesthood or in consecrated life.

On Aug. 19, 2000, at WYD in Rome in the year of the Great Jubilee, Pope John Paul II called young people the “morning watchmen” and reminded them that by “saying ‘Yes’ to Christ, you say ‘Yes’ to all your noblest ideals. I pray that he will reign in your hearts and in all of humanity in the new century and the new millennium. Have no fear of entrusting yourselves to him! He will guide you, he will grant you the strength to follow him every day and in every situation.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA. The article was updated on July 11, 2023.