Australian Catholic Youth Festival

It has been almost five years since the previous Festival was held and this provides an exciting opportunity to welcome a new legion of young people to experience the Festival for the first time. The Festival will be held in central Melbourne and will welcome young people in Year 9 (in 2025) – 25 years of age, as well as their accompanying leaders and chaplains. We are planning for well over 10,000 young people to gather – the largest Catholic youth gathering in the nation!

As Pope Francis recently shared in his 2024 message for World Youth Day, “The Jubilee pilgrimage is meant to be the outward sign of an inward journey that all of us are called to make towards our final destination.” As these thousands of young souls gather, there will be powerful opportunities to listen, learn and absorb the grace and hope of Christ.

Once in Melbourne, the festival program will provide opportunities of encounter, formation, the celebration of the Sacraments, social action, dialogue, forming new connections, encountering new expressions of prayer and of course – having had a deeper encounter with Christ.