On his trip to Panama for the World Youth Day celebrations, Pope Francis will visit the Las Garzas de Pacora detention center in Las Garzas, which is Panama's main youth lockup. While there, the pope will pray with the inmates, offer a message of peace and reconciliation and will also hear their confessions. This will be the first time Pope Francis has done so on a pilgrimage.

This year’s W.Y.D takes place less than three months after the conclusion of the Synod for Young People that was held in the Vatican last October.

A 2018 study on young adults leaving the Catholic Church found people stopped identifying as Catholics at a median age of 13, long before they ceased attending a parish.

The report examined two distinct approaches to campus ministry. Degree-educated staff tend to emphasize public service, but missionary-trained staff are more likely to focus on students’ personal relationships with God.

The fossil fuel divestment movement, which started in the 2000s, has become a mainstay of activism on college campuses.

Children can flex their learning muscles and begin to talk more deeply about their faith with a more “conversational” catechesis.