Hundreds of thousands of young Catholics attend Pope Leo XIV's vigil at Holy Year youth festival

Hundreds of thousands of young Catholics gathered in Rome on Saturday for an evening vigil, outdoor slumber party and morning Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV.  

It is the weekend highlight of the Vatican’s 2025 Holy Year and marks the pontiff’s first big encounter with the next generation of Catholics. 

Italian media say the number of pilgrims is as high as one million and that they come from 146 countries, 68% of whom come from Europe. There are also young people from conflict zones including Lebanon, Iraq, Myanmar, Ukraine, Syria and South Sudan. 

For the last week, the young people have poured into Rome for the special Jubilee celebration. Saturday’s vigil with the Pope at the Tor Vergata field on the eastern flank of Rome is the culmination of the festivities. 

Pilgrims will be able to spend the night on the law in front of Tor Vergata as they await the Pope's morning mass on Sunday. 

Misting trucks and water cannons spritzed the young people to keep them cool as temperatures neared 30 degrees Celsius ahead of Pope Leo’s arrival. 

“It is something spiritual, that you can experience only every 25 years," said Francisco Michel, a pilgrim from Mexico. “As a young person, having the chance to live this meeting with the pope I feel it is a spiritual growth.”   

“It’s a bit messed up, but this is what is nice about the Jubilee,” said Chloe Jobbour, a 19-year-old Lebanese Catholic who was in Rome with a group of more than 200 young members of the Community of the Beatitudes, a France-based charismatic group.  

She said, for example, that it had taken two hours to get dinner at a KFC overwhelmed by orders Friday night. The Salesian school that offered her group housing is an hour away by bus. But Jobbour, like many in Rome this week, didn’t mind the discomfort: It’s all part of the experience.  

“I don’t expect it to be better than that. I expected it this way,” she said, as members of her group gathered on church steps near the Vatican to sing and pray Saturday morning before heading out to Tor Vergata. 

There was one tragedy before Saturday’s vigil began. The Vatican confirmed that an Egyptian 18-year-old woman had reportedly died of a cardiac arrest during the pilgrimage. The Pope met with her group and extended his condolences to her family on Saturday. 

The young people have taken over entire piazzas of Rome for Christian rock concerts and inspiration talks. Some waited for hours to confess their sins to 1,000 priests offering the sacrament in a dozen different languages at the Circus Maximus. 

Around a thousand parishes, schools and families will provide accommodation and breakfast for pilgrims in addition to a large hostel capable of hosting about 25,000 people set up at the Fiera di Roma. 

Other facilities include discounted meal vouchers, shower services at major public transport hubs, almost 3,000 chemical toilets on the streets of Rome and the upgrade of underground and regional trains and buses. 

Security measures have been put in place. Gates have been set up to prevent dangerous materials and objects into certain areas. Pilgrims have been asked to carry only the bare essentials to facilitate controls. 

Volunteers will distribute water bottles and an app by municipal company Acea will provide a map of the 2,660 free water supply points in Rome.