SAN DIEGO — San Diego Catholic Youth Day will be held on Saturday, April 11.
Hosted by the diocesan Office for Youth and Young Adult Ministry, the annual event will take place at Cathedral Catholic High School.
“This is a great opportunity for fellowship,” said Maricruz Flores Strauss, director of the Office for Youth and Young Adult Ministry.
“Where their (parish) youth group might have 20 or 30 kids … we usually have over 800 teens from all over the San Diego Diocese,” added Associate Director Evelyn Knuff, “and (participating teens) get to experience the vibrancy and the fullness of the young Church.”
This year’s theme — trilingual in English, Spanish and Latin — is “Peace, Paz, Pacem.”
Flores Strauss explained that the theme was inspired by Pope Leo XIV’s first words to the world after his election — a quotation from the Risen Jesus — “Peace be with you all.”
Knuff said that, in speaking with youth ministers and the youth themselves, one thing that “always comes up” is that teens feel “overwhelmed, and stressed, and anxious.”
“We wanted to echo Pope Leo’s words, but also the words of Jesus himself, of saying, ‘Peace be with you,’ to bring peace into the chaos that they’re experiencing,” she said.
Check-in will begin at 11:30 a.m.
The keynote speaker will be Father Agustino Torres, a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and founder of the youth and young adult ministry Corazón Puro.
The schedule will include various faith-based workshops and will feature live praise-and-worship music performed by The Scally Brothers. There will also be Eucharistic adoration and opportunities for confession and for visiting various Catholic exhibitors. The day will conclude with a 5:30 p.m. Mass celebrated by Bishop Michael Pham.
One workshop will focus on St. Francis of Assisi, in honor of the 800th anniversary of his death, which is being observed in 2026 throughout the Universal Church.
Service and social justice will be covered by another workshop, to be presented by a group of local teens who participated in a mission trip to Ghana last year. They will share their experiences and explain how teens can serve in their local communities if they are unable to go on an international trip.
The Scally Brothers will present a breakout session, during which they will share their own faith journeys and lead the teens in praise-and-worship.
There will be separate vocations panels for boys and girls, and there also are plans for a “soccer clinic,” through which the teens will learn how faith and sports can work together.
“We’re all called to use … our God-given gifts to bring glory to God and not for our own selfishness, or our own ego, or pride,” said Knuff. “So, if you are gifted with athleticism, like any other gift, we’re called to use those gifts for the glory of God.”
Knuff said that San Diego Youth Day is “always a really fun, high-energy day.”
“Teens get a different setting than their parish that they might go to every week,” she said, “and get to worship the Lord and hear about faith in a different way.”
The cost to attend is $50 per participant. Advance registration is required. For more information, email tsotelo@sdcatholic.org or call (858) 490-8260.
