PAP said Francis kissed a reliquary with the relics of the two priests, Zbigniew Strzalkowski and Michal Tomaszek. Also present in the church were Tomaszek’s two sisters and father and Strzalkowski’s two brothers.
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The pope used his several encounters with the young pilgrims – from mega-gatherings to a private lunch with only a dozen of them from five continents – to encourage a new generation to work for peace, reconciliation and justice.
Pope Francis continued his address by warning the pilgrims to not fall into a “paralysis that comes from confusing happiness with a sofa”.
The “world is at war”, Francis said, but the way to “overcome fear” was to welcome people fleeing conflicts and persecution – a message with particular resonance in Poland, which has taken a hard line against refugees.
“Jesus is not the Lord of comfort, security and ease”, the pontiff continued.
He warned of “drowsy and tiresome kids who confuse happiness with a sofa”, saying that following Jesus called for “a good dose of courage, a readiness to trade in the sofa for a pair of walking shoes and to set out on new and uncharted paths”.
Later, in a speech, Francis called for prayers for war victims in Syria and elsewhere.
Francis said modern escapism into consumerism and computers isolates people.
The final festivities were attended by “between 2.5 and 3.0 million people”, 2016 World Youth Day spokesperson Anna Chmura told AFP.
Visibly emotional and wide-eyed, the youths boarded the vehicle and joined Pope Francis, waving at the crowd.
The Mass is taking place in the Campus Misericordiae in Brzegi, a village near Krakow.
Groups stopped along the way to rest or to buy food or get water from specially organized points.
Pope Francis challenged hundreds of thousands of young people who gathered in a sprawling Polish meadow to reject being a “couch potato” who retreats into video games and computer screens.
Francis then rested for a bit ahead of an evening vigil with the youth in a huge meadow just outside Krakow.
He will end his visit to Poland on Sunday after a Mass in the same meadow, the crowning event of the youth jamboree.
He didn’t specify exactly where in Panama the event would be held. It was really like being at home – and at the end, he hugged each of us, smiling, in a very Franciscan way. “You are our hope”.
The 28-year-old said he told them it was “important to be ourselves in these times, these crucial moments”.
Quan Vu Hong, a young Vietnamese on the World Youth Day’s organization committee, said he could barely contain his emotion and disbelief at having been among those chosen to dine with the pope.
During his five-day visit to Poland, Francis also on Friday visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where 1.1 million people met their deaths under the Nazi regime.
From there it was a quick drive to the hilltop Sanctuary of St. John Paul II.
“Our response to a world at war has a name: fraternity”, he said. “But the fact that Jesus has taken upon himself all these things is also a reality”, the pope said.
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The frail, 82-year-old John Paul II consecrated the new basilica during his last visit to his homeland in 2002, by anointing its white marble altar and celebrating prayers there. The lower church houses the relics of John Paul, who died in 2005, while his body is entombed inside St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
