Live. Pope Francis arrives in Portugal for World Youth Day amid ongoing sex abuse scandal

Pope Francis has arrived in Portugal to open the first post-pandemic edition of World Youth Day, hoping to inspire the next generation of Catholics while coping with the church's ongoing clergy sexual abuse scandal.

More than one million young people from around the world are reportedly expected to attend the gathering in Lisbon, which takes place over several days. Busloads of pilgrims started arriving before Tuesday despite temperatures forecast to hit 35 degrees Celsius by the weekend’s final papal Mass.

“Stay hydrated!” read a slogan promoted by Portugal's General Directorate for Health for the event. Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa advised youth day volunteers Monday to keep with them “a lot of water, because it’s very hot, and a hat.”

Cardinal-elect Americo Aguiar, a Lisbon bishop who is organising the festival, said two years of COVID-19 lockdowns made this year's edition of World Youth Day unique. He said it was an important encounter for Catholic youths, especially with war raging now in Europe and economic uncertainties around the globe.

“The pope always says this event is the joy and the possibility of coming together, of the culture of coming together,” Aguiar said in an interview with Associated Press. “After such limitations and difficulties, young people from all over the world will be able to meet again, with a certain freedom.”

Francis is scheduled to spend the morning meeting with Portuguese officials at the Belem National Palace, the official presidential residence west of Lisbon, from where Portugal’s maritime explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries set sail.

In the afternoon, Francis makes his way to the 16th-century Jeronimos Monastery and church, arguably Portugal’s greatest monument. There, he