Cross and Icon return
Families and young Catholics are encouraged to attend the 2025 Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF) at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from November 30 to December 2
The festival will open with a pilgrimage walk from St Patrick’s Cathedral through the centre of Melbourne, along the banks of the Yarra River and finish at the exhibition centre for an evening concert.
Hailed as an opportunity to ‘encounter Jesus and grow the next generation of leaders’, the ACYF began as an initiative of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in 2013.
In Sydney for WYD in 2008, the World Youth Day Cross and Icon will also make a return visit to Australia for the festival. They were originally gifted by St John Paul II to the world’s young people in 1984. Known as the “Pilgrim Cross”, the wooden cross, stands at almost four metres while the Icon of Mary is a copy of the ancient Marian image housed in Rome.
Festival keynote speakers will include Fr Rob Galea, Australian-born Sister of Life Sr Mary Grace SV and the award-winning US author and podcaster Katie Prejean-McGrady
Festival director Teresa Rhynehart, who is also the Archdiocese of Melbourne’s mission director, says families, young people and clergy are all welcome.
“It is about entering into a space, or place, in which young people can encounter Jesus in some way – either for the first time or for the fifth time,” she said. “It is a space for young people to encounter each other. Being able to gather together in community is a really powerful experience – to see that they are not alone.
“They will experience different forms of prayer, new ways of worship and being Catholic.”
The ACYF is a three-day event bringing together thousands of young people, aged from Year nine to 25, from across Australia. The festival will include talks, prayer experiences, Mass, workshops, forums, live concerts, games, a justice activity centre, and an interactive expo.
Families can coordinate a small group of siblings and friends to go together, with parents or responsible young adults as group leaders. Parishes and communities will need to register as a group.
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President and Archbishop of Perth, Timothy Costelloe SDB, said hosting the festival in 2019 had generated “enormous enthusiasm” among young people.
“Many of our young people are relatively isolated in their parish, but to go to the youth festival gives them a sense of being part of something very big, useful and life-giving,” he said. “The seeds were sown for some very positive initiatives.”
More than 7,000 people attended the Perth event. More details about the Festival at acyf.org.au
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