Pope Francis will meet young student priests on Saturday on the fourth day of his visit to Panama for World Youth Day celebrations, a day after the clergy sex abuse scandal haunting his papacy returned to the spotlight. The 82-year-old Argentine pontiff will begin the penultimate day of his visit to Panama by celebrating mass in the centuries-old colonial Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria la Antigua, Panama’s patron saint. He will then visit the country’s major seminary of San Jose, and address the ever present problem of dwindling recruitment to the priesthood. Francis himself acknowledged at a general audience in August that the scandals of abuse and cover-up by Church leaders has caused a decline in vocations to the priesthood in Ireland. Francis will preside over an evening vigil with an expected crowd of some 200,000 pilgrims at the three-kilometer long Metro Park on the outskirts of Panama.

Source: Egypt Independent January 26, 2019 07:30 UTC