Pope Francis’ schedule for his trip to Portugal

Pope Francis’ 42nd apostolic journey will be to Portugal. He will travel from August 2 to 6, 2023, to attend World Youth Day (WYD) in Lisbon and is scheduled to deliver eight speeches and two homilies, according to the official program published on June 6 by the Vatican press office. During these five days, the Pope will make a stopover in Fatima on August 5, a Marian shrine he visited previously in 2017.

This will be the fourth WYD that the 86-year-old Argentine Pontiff will attend. In 2013, the newly elected Pope Francis visited Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; in 2016, Krakow, Poland; and in 2019, he celebrated the 34th WYD in Panama.

Portugal has a different time zone to Italy. In Lisbon ( UTC+1h), it will be one hour earlier than in Rome or Paris (UTC+2h). All hours in this text are given in the local Portuguese time zone ( UTC+1h), with the exception of the departure and return times to Rome (UTC+2h).

A private meeting with victims of sexual assaults committed by members of the Portuguese clergy is scheduled to take place during the Pope's stay in Portugal, however it has not been officially announced by the Holy See. It is not included in the official program.

Pope Francis will take off from Rome's Fiumicino airport at 7:50 a.m., for a 3 hour and 10 minute flight aboard a plane chartered by ITA Airways. The distance which will be traveled is 1957 km, or 1216 miles. The Pope will receive an official welcome upon landing at 10 a.m. at the Figo Maduro Air Base in Lisbon (1).

At 10:45 a.m. an official welcome ceremony is then scheduled for the Pontiff at the Belém Palace (2), the official residence of the President of the Republic, some 9 miles south of the airport, on the seafront. Francis will then pay a courtesy visit to the Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, at 11:15 p.m. Then, an hour later, the Pope will meet with the country's authorities, the diplomatic corps and representatives of civil society, to whom he will deliver his first speech in Portugal, at the Cultural Center of Belém (3).

In the afternoon, the Pope will meet with the head of government, Prime Minister Antonio Costa, at 4:45 p.m. at the Apostolic Nunciature (4).

The day will end at the Jerónimos Monastery (5), where the Pope will celebrate vespers at 5:30 p.m. with bishops, priests, consecrated persons, deacons, seminarians and those involved in the country's pastoral care. He will then deliver a homily in this Unesco-listed Renaissance monument, some 4 miles from the Apostolic Nunciature.

On August 3, Pope Francis is expected at 9 a.m. at the Catholic University of Portugal (6), a little over 1 mile north of the Nunciature, where he will deliver a speech.

The Pope will then travel some 19 miles to Cascais, a neighboring town to the west of Lisbon, for a meeting with young people from the Scholas Occurentes education network, at the headquarters of this Vatican foundation (7). The Argentine Pontiff will then greet the members of this organization.

At the end of the day, at 5:45 p.m., the Pope will go to Lisbon’s “Eduardo VII” Park, where he will take part in the welcome ceremony for World Youth Day (WYD) with the participants. The Pope will deliver a speech in this park, which also has a monumental lookout over the Portuguese capital. 

Pope Francis will spend the third day of his trip in Lisbon. In the morning, at 9 a.m., he will take part in the sacrament of confession for young people participating in the WYD, at the Empire Square ("Praça do Império"), a garden adjacent to the  Jerónimos Monastery (9).

At 9:45 a.m., the Pope will meet representatives of charity centers at the Serafina parish center (10), where he will deliver a speech. At noon, he will have lunch with young people at the Apostolic Nunciature (11).

He will conclude the day with the WYD Stations of the Cross, in the "Eduardo VII" Park, at 6 p.m., where he will give a speech (12).

On Saturday, Pope Francis will visit the Marian shrine of Fatima (13) - some 64 miles from Lisbon - for the second time in his pontificate after his 2017 visit. He will make the journey by helicopter, taking off at 8 a.m. and landing at the Fatima stadium at 8:50 a.m.

At 9:30 a.m. the Pope will pray a rosary with sick young people and give a speech at the Chapel of Apparitions of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. The Pope will then leave for Lisbon by helicopter at 11 a.m.

As he does on every trip, the Pope will meet members of the Society of Jesus in private at 6 p.m. at the St. John de Britto College (14) in Lisbon.

The traditional WYD vigil will then take place at 8:45 p.m. in the Tagus Park, a 90-hectare natural park on Lisbon's east coast, bordered by the River Tagus (15). The Pope will give a speech to the several hundred thousand young people expected to attend.

Still at the Tagus Park (16) where the young people will have spent the night, Pope Francis will celebrate the concluding mass of WYD, at 9 a.m. At the end of the celebration, the location of the next WYD should be announced.

After a short rest, the Pontiff will finally meet WYD volunteers at 4:30 p.m at the Algés Boardwalk (17), in the south of the Portuguese capital. It is here that the Pontiff will deliver his last speech in Portugal.

At 5:50 p.m., a farewell ceremony will take place at the Figo Maduro Air Base. The return flight, chartered by the airline TAP Air Portugal, will take off for Rome at 6:15 p.m. Pope Francis is due to arrive at Rome Fiumicino airport at 10:15 p.m.