Cardinal Sturla Berhouet: “I think the Jubilee will be important for an evangelization that goes deep into the hearts of young people”

His Eminence Daniel Fernando Sturla Berhouet, Metropolitan Archbishop of Montevideo (Uruguay) since 2014, was created Cardinal by Pope Francis in 2015 and has served as Vice President of the Episcopal Conference of Uruguay since 2022. He was in Rome for the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

We asked him his opinion on the role that pilgrimage plays within a journey of faith and what he thinks the evangelical significance of this Jubilee is.

One of the key signs of the Jubilee is the pilgrimage. What role does pilgrimage have within a journey of faith?

“We know how important the concept of pilgrimage has always been throughout the Christian tradition, don't we? Just think of traditional places of pilgrimage such as Santiago de Compostela, where I myself – after I became a cardinal - went on a pilgrimage with my old school friends. There were 20 of us -  55 year old lads! - and we traveled more than 100 kilometers on foot to reach Santiago and embrace the Apostle James. But I think in every country there is a strong concept of pilgrimage, of walking, of going to a sanctuary or shrine, to a specific place to meet Christ, or Our Lady, or the saints. And I believe that coming to Rome, going on a pilgrimage to the tombs of the apostles and visiting the holy city of so many martyrs, will be a powerful attraction."

Do you think this Jubilee will help the Church's work of evangelization in the years to come?

“We know, as has often been said, it is not a question of giving pastoral care to events, to happenings, but rather offering a pastoral care to processes. So, I believe that if it is well framed with proper preparatory catechesis, followed by the key event itself and then if the pastoral support continues afterwards, I think the Jubilee will be important for an evangelization that goes deep into the hearts of young people. What we see today – and I say this from the perspective of my own country, which is rather unusual in Latin America because it is a very secularized country - is that young people respond when they see a clearly Christian, religious proposition that goes to the depths of their spiritual lives.”