By Currents News and Bill Miller
Cram a multitude of teens and young adults into one space, and it’s going to get loud. That’s precisely what happened on Aug. 2 near a university campus on the outskirts of Rome.
Hundreds of thousands of young Catholic pilgrims from across the globe — with some estimates saying it was around 1 million — assembled near the University of Rome Tor Vergata for prayer and an overnight vigil.
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The gathering was part of the celebrations for the 2025 Jubilee of Youth. Among them were 87 pilgrims from the Diocese of Brooklyn, plus chaperones, parish priests, and Bishop Robert Brennan.
The exuberant New Yorkers, toting the flags of the United States, the Roman Catholic Church, and the diocese, participated in the joyous assembly led by Pope Leo XIV.
One pilgrim from Queens described the young people as being “so alive and so inflamed with our faith.” That is, until the new pope raised a monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament for Eucharistic adoration.
“Literally,” Jon Paolo “J.P.” Marasigan said, “You had a million people — who were completely loud and noisy just minutes before — falling into complete silence, worshiping the Blessed Sacrament.
“Beautiful!”
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The Jubilee of Youth, held from July 28 to Aug. 3, was part of the 2025 Jubilee Year celebrating the anniversary of the Incarnation of the Lord. Youth and young adults came to Rome for the international celebration and pilgrimage.
The Diocese of Brooklyn’s pilgrims came from several parishes.
Included were St. Brigid, Bushwick; St. Athanasius, Bensonhurst; Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Astoria; the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Williamsburg; St. Mary Gate of Heaven, South Ozone Park; St. Pancras, Glendale; and the Basilica of Regina Pacis, Dyker Heights.
Marasigan is a co-youth minister at St. Mary Gate of Heaven.
He told The Tablet on Aug. 5, just hours after returning from Rome, that the Jubilee of Youth showed the world that the Catholic faith is strong among the world’s youth.
“It was a testament to everyone who says that young people aren’t falling in love with Catholicism,” he said. “Yes, we are still here in the Church. It is something that I want to share with the people right here in Brooklyn and Queens.”
Another attendee, Luis Sanchez, from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, agreed.
“The youth need to be heard,” he said. “In return, our Catholic faith will see their active participation will be equivalent to how much we listen to the youth.”
Felicity Morel, also from Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Astoria, said the nine-day experience invigorated her faith, especially the Eucharistic adoration at the Aug. 2 night vigil.
“I just felt so close to Jesus,” she said. “Honestly, it taught me that I do love the Eucharist. It helped me understand, this is my faith.
“This is why I love my faith.”
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The first day of the pilgrimage included a tour of Assisi, where participants learned about St. Francis and St. Clare.
Later in the week, they also visited the tombs of many other saints, plus two young men who will be canonized in September — Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Felicity, who will enter Emmanuel College in Boston this fall, said she was impressed to hear the biographies of saints and learn that they, too, had flaws.
“It was lovely knowing that these were normal people, who were also sinners, and yet they became saints,” she said.
She praised Bishop Brennan for walking every step with the pilgrims.
“It was very comforting knowing that the bishop of our diocese, which is very big, can really be someone that you can talk to,” she said.
Amy Vu, also from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, said it was “spiritually nurturing” to walk through the holy doors of the major basilicas in Rome, which are opened during a Jubilee, every 25 years. These portals are at St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major, which is the burial place for Pope Francis.
Amy said she was glad to pass through that door because she had hoped to see Pope Francis at the Jubilee, but he died last April.
Still, all four of the pilgrims were excited to see Pope Leo up close. They described rushing to the barricades to see him better as he passed in the popemobile.
During the homily of the closing Mass on Aug. 3, Pope Leo urged the pilgrims to realize that “everything in the world has meaning only insofar as it serves to unite us to God and to our brothers and sisters in charity.”
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Such things, he added, help “us to grow in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, forgiveness and peace, all in imitation of Christ.”
Amy said she hopes to do that when she begins college in the fall to study biology and English at Stony Brook University on Long Island.
“I want to really focus on being faithful in college, because one of the things that I don’t want to dwindle, or lose, is my faith,” she said. “So, I want to try to work on my faith through volunteering or helping out at campus ministry.
“And, of course, going to Mass.”
