Six thousand workers of the Lisbon City Council (CML) were awarded this Monday, through representatives of various sectors, with medals from Pope Francis for the work carried out during World Youth Day (WYD) in the first week of August 2023.
On the sidelines of a ceremony marking the anniversary of the arrival of the WYD symbols in the capital, in the Praça Municipio, Lisbon City Council President Carlos Moedas thanked the leader of the Catholic Church for the gesture and told reporters that “it was the greatest event ever.”
“I don’t think that, at least in my lifetime, there will be an event like this in Lisbon with one and a half million people, and so it was a moment to be grateful, a moment to thank all the workers of the Chamber who worked so hard day and night to make this happen,” he stressed.
For Carlos Moedas, Lisbon has managed to prove that “the local administration is a great administration, with a lot of people and a lot of good employees” and that “there has been a resurgence of self-esteem that was missing among the local administration staff.”
“It was for everyone, it was not only for religion, it was for all the people of Lisbon, and from here they got more than 290 million in economic benefits, with 10 thousand jobs in the city, and that was very important, it was also important to show that we did it, that it was a success,” he stressed. As for possible projects for young people with the proceeds from WYD, Carlos Moedas said that “there are several ideas,” but “it is good not to confuse things.”
“One is the economic benefit, which has brought the city $290 million, and the other is the profit from the sale of these tickets, which the WYD Foundation has announced in the past and which I am sure will happen, and this will be the application of this profit to projects in the Lisbon area,” he said.
“We have a lot of good ideas, project ideas for young people, from student housing to a lot of projects that could be done with this money, and so we are here at a time when I think this is a decision that needs to be taken, it is being looked at, but it is mainly being discussed between the parties, but the decision is obviously not for the city council to make, it is for the JMJ foundation to make,” he added.
JMJ Foundation President Father Alexander Palma told reporters that it was necessary to get “everyone, such as society, the church, the community, private and public alternatives, to join hands” to build “something not only with young people, but for young people.”
“Of course, we are not going to hold WYD 2024 or WYD 2025. We are going to do something different, using good money, not just good money. Sometimes it seems that the only good that is left in the Fund is good. Money is good, so we can do a lot of good for others, but that is not all. The capital that we want to increase and distribute is not just monetary, it is also symbolic, it is passion, it is the main character of young people. I want to do,” he explained.
According to Alexandre Palma, the good created at WYD, material and immaterial, quantitative and qualitative, social, material and spiritual, “is the heritage of Lisbon, it is the heritage of the country.” “The Foundation will want to return the money. We do not want to return the money in the short term, we do not want to return the money in the medium term, but we want to return the money in the long term. To do this, we must make good use of one of the assets of the trip, being able to do it very carefully, with great transparency, with great responsibility, so that we can distribute it over many years,” he noted.
Earlier, the Apostolic Nuncio to Portugal, Ivo Scapolo, read a message from Pope Francis in which he recognized the commitment of the workers of the Lisbon municipality, who “managed to prepare the city to receive the light of those young people who, at the beginning of August last year, made Lisbon the capital of peace and the future.”
WYD in Lisbon, which took place from 1 to 6 August, brought together some 1.5 million young people in the Tagus Park for Mass and a vigil in the presence of Pope Francis.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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