In mid-May, I spent two intense days in Lisbon, where a new Portuguese edition of my
Letters to a Young Catholic
was being prepared as a catechetical resource for World Youth Day 2023. In and around that wonderful city, I had the pleasure of meeting with Catholic educators from all over Portugal; I was hosted for talks at two vibrant parishes; and I got a whirlwind tour of World Youth Day GHQ: a former military commissary, where a different kind of army—a regiment of energetic young Catholic activists—was handling the logistics of an international gathering that would tax the capacity of the most expensive society “event planner.” In each of these encounters, I found a great hope that WYD 2023, under the maternal protection of Our Lady of Fatima, would energize the New Evangelization in Portugal and perhaps throughout Western Europe.