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After leading the midday Angelus on December 8, 2023, Pope Francis announced the first World Children's Day. The event will be held in Rome on May 25 and 26, 2024, and will have the theme: "Like Jesus, we want to put children at the center and take care of them."
"What type of world do we want to transmit to the children who are growing up?" the day invites us to ask, the Pope said.
World Children's Day will be organized by the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
The event is expected to bring “thousands of boys and girls from all over the world to flock to Rome,” says the official Vatican News portal. It finds its origin in the request of little Alessandro, 9 years old, who suggested this idea to the Pope in a podcast broadcast last July shortly before World Youth Day in Lisbon. “I like it very much,” the Pope replied.
World Children's Day had a recent dress rehearsal with the arrival, on November 6, of 7,500 children from five continents to the Vatican to greet the Pope.
“A great meeting of music and testimonies which is a prelude to what will be the next edition in Rome,” says Vatican News.
Pope Francis also launched, in 2021, a World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly, the third edition of which took place on July 23, 2023.
