On September 25-27, Pope Francis visited Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He visited Washington, D.C. just a few days before to speak with Congress about foreign issues and issues involving the catholic church.

I attended a youth pilgrimage set up by The Arlington Dioceses of Virginia. The Dioceses and I traveled to a camp about an hour away from Philadelphia.

There were about 800 people at the camp. We prepared for the pope’s arrival by singing songs and trying to connect with our spiritual side. On the first day we traveled to the city for the World Meeting of Families, a parade in which the pope drives through the city. According to www.worldmeeting2015.org, it is the world’s largest Catholic gathering of families.

Because we were in the unticketed space, we had to go through intense security in order to get into the parade area. While waiting in the security line, I witnessed protesters from far right-winged churches. They believed that following the pope was against God’s will. There were also many people from the catholic churches asking me to sign petitions against gays and gay marriages.

That same night, Pope Francis delivered a speech based on the theme “Love Is Our Mission.” He applied this theme to everyone. In essence, his speech stated that love is what brought people together and that everyone deserved some kind of love. It portrayed the idea that love was the ultimate power that could hold people together. Francis said that everyone was welcome in the mission no matter what skin color, race, ethnicity, and etc. He assured everyone that he would do everything in his ability to ensure that everyone possessed the power of love.

The second day of the festival went a lot smoother. Since my church had tickets to the mass, the line went by much faster. Before mass, the Pope conducted another parade where he drove through the city. I pushed myself through to the front where I was only 10 feet away from the pope. At 4 p.m., the pope gave a mass. During that mass, his homily reflected his “Love Is Our Mission” speech from the previous night.

At the end of mass he announced that the next World Meeting of Families would be held in 2018 in Dublin, Ireland.