Representatives of a group of diocesan young adults who plan a pilgrimage to next year’s World Youth Day (WYD) celebration in Lisbon, Portugal will visit parishes with large Latino populations on Sunday, Dec. 11 and Monday, Dec. 12 and sell items such as T-shirts, rosaries and shawls to raise funds for the trip.
Lisset Mendoza, director of the diocesan Office for Hispanic Ministry, said those visiting parishes will be among 21 Latinos ages 18 to 40 who will fly to Lisbon to join hundreds of thousands of other young people for the event, scheduled for Aug. 1-6, 2023. This will be the 16th such gathering since the first World Youth Day was convened in 1986 by Pope St. John Paul II.
The celebration, besides bringing together young Catholics from throughout the world for Masses, talks and other spiritual activities, features one or more large-group encounters with the pope and usually occurs once every three years. The 2023 WYD was delayed for one year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the Latino group from Columbus raising money to go to the event are Alma Vera and Angelica de Leon, office managers for Columbus Christ the King and St. Thomas the Apostle churches; Myra Huddleston, youth evangelization director for the two parishes; and Meliza Saucedo of Columbus St. Stephen the Martyr Church.
Also among the 21 going to WYD is Father David Arroyo, one of three members of the Theatine order of priests who came to Columbus this year, are in residence at Christ the King and are serving parishes throughout the diocese.
Plans for the local pilgrims to attend WYD began last year with conversations among Saucedo and the three women who work at Christ the King and St. Thomas. “We became friends when I learned about their experience at previous World Youth Days and how they encountered the Lord there, and I also want to have that experience,” said de Leon, who was born in Mexico and has lived in the United States for 16 years, including the past 12 in Columbus.
“It was a combination of reversion – our desire to go to another World Youth Day – and convergence – three of us being together, working together for Father (David) Schalk (pastor of Christ the King and St. Thomas and diocesan vicar for Hispanic ministry).
“We started talking and began telling friends about this. The plans were put on hold for a while when Bishop (Robert) Brennan was transferred to Brooklyn last year, but we resumed talking about a possible pilgrimage once Bishop (Earl) Fernandes was installed this year.”
“The last World Youth Day in Panama in 2019 was a really powerful experience from which I’ve continued to grow and expand my knowledge of the faith,” said Vera, who moved to Columbus shortly after the event.
“I saw no organized group of Catholic Latino young people in Columbus, but as Angelica, Myra and Meliza and I got to know each other through our church activities, we started reaching out and sharing with others. All of us want to grow the Latino Catholic community here and feel that getting other young people involved is the best way to do it.”
Huddleston has been to WYD celebrations in Rio de Janeiro in 2013; Krakow, Poland in 2016; and Panama in 2019, serving as a tour guide for the 2019 event. “I had no money to go to Panama, but the Lord must have wanted me to go, because the guide position opened at the last minute and, based on my past World Youth Day experience, I was hired for it,” she said.
“The one thing that never changes at World Youth Day is the presence of Jesus Christ,” she said. “What changes are your individual circumstances.
“In 2013, I wasn’t sure I wanted to remain Catholic, but my experience there left me with certainty about the faith. In 2016, I took a leap of faith. My mother was dealing with cancer, and I didn’t want to go, but my mother insisted on it, and as I put my trust in God and prayed for her, my faith was transformed into something greater. Then came the unexpected opportunity in 2019.”
Huddleston grew up in Watsonville, California and became a missionary for The Culture Project, a group of young adults who deliver presentations about living an authentic Catholic life in a secular world to young people across the nation, including in the Diocese of Columbus. That’s where she met her future husband, Sam, from Bowling Green, Kentucky. Because of COVID, they carried on a long-distance relationship through Zoom for two years.
Then in 2021, she came to central Ohio to visit friends at the Damascus Catholic Mission Campus in Knox County. “Thanks to a 10-minute conversation with Monica Richards of the Damascus staff, I got my current job at Christ the King and St. Thomas,” she said. “Sam found employment in Columbus at about the same time. It was as though God had opened doors for both of us to allow us to be together. We were married on Oct. 29 of this year.”
Vera was born in Houston, lived with her family in several cities and came to Columbus in 2020 from Columbus, Indiana. “I went to World Youth Day in 2016 in Poland. The big deal for me then was just being able to go to Europe for something that just happened to be a Church event,” she said.
“But when the Lord comes, he comes powerfully. His presence there was so overwhelming that I knew when I went back, I wanted to be involved with the Church in some way. I did youth ministry in Indiana, spent a year with the Franciscan Friars in New York, then came back home when COVID hit.
“While I was back in Indiana, I saw an ad on the CatholicJobs.com employment site for an open position in Columbus that seemed like a great fit for me, so I applied for it, was hired and started here at Christ the King and St. Thomas.”
Saucedo grew up as a member of St. Stephen Church, where the Missionary Sisters, Servants of the Word have served the Latino community for the past 11 years.
“I went to World Youth Day in Panama in 2019 with the sisters,” she said. “I had taken part in a vocations discernment retreat with them earlier, and in Panama I said ‘Yes’ to the call to work for the Church.
“I was especially impressed when Pope Francis said in Panama that ‘you are pilgrims for your whole life.’ I came back home from Panama, finished college and worked for Chase Bank for a while but left that job and am discerning what the next phase of my life should be.
“It’s so important for the Church to engage Hispanic young people, especially because of the decrease in vocations to the priesthood. My World Youth Day experience made me on fire for Jesus, and I’m ready to find out where the next one may lead me.”
Mendoza said the total cost for the group’s pilgrimage to Lisbon, which also will include visits to the site of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima and to other holy places, will be slightly more than $90,000 – about $4,300 per person. The 21 pilgrims have applied for a $9,000 grant from The Catholic Foundation and, in addition to visiting parishes, will be hosting a fundraising gala on Saturday, Feb. 18 at Columbus St. Catharine Church.
The Office for Hispanic Ministry also will sponsor a Guadalupe Youth Summit on March 9 for all Latino high school students. More details on that event will be announced.
To donate to the pilgrimage or to learn more about the youth summit, contact Mendoza at (614) 221-7992 or [email protected].
