Cebuana among 10 young people who had lunch with Pope Francis

CEBU, Philippines —  A Catholic devotee from Cebu was among the ten young people who had lunch with Pope Francis in Lisbon, Portugal, where the World Youth Day is currently held.

33-year-old Audrey Criscille Abatol, who hails from Mandaue City, joined nine other young people aged 24 to 34, three of them from Portugal and one each from Peru, Equatorial Guinea, the United States, Palestine, Colombia and Brazil, according to the news service of the Vatican. It noted she was the lone Filipino there.

The pontiff and the young people enjoyed lunch of pasta, meat and ice cream at the Apostolic Nunciature or the residence of the apostolic nuncio in Lisbon, it added.

When Abatol introduced herself to Pope Francis, he recognized the Santo Niño or the Infant Jesus – the patron saint of Cebu – which she gave him as a gift, she said. “It was simple, I’m Audrey from the Philippines. And we also presented a gift, a small gift. So for myself, I presented a Santo Niño de Cebu, it’s the Holy Child Jesus of Cebu, my island, I’m from Cebu, so I presented this gift and a bit of small notes for the Pope.”

“He asked, ‘Oh Santo Niño?’ It was a beautiful moment,” she said.

During the lunch, Abatol asked the pope “how to become a better friend and a better young fellow to others.”

“First he said that joy cannot be taught but it needs to be shown, so that’s what he suggested that really just show the Gospel through your actions, through what you do because it will be contagious,” she recalled quoting the first Argentinian pope.

Abatol admitted she struggled with understanding Spanish and Italian which Pope Francis and the other young people spoke during the lunch. However, she added she was thankful for the fellow delegates who translated some parts of the conversation for her.

Despite such difficulty, she considered the lunch with Pope Francis – traditionally regarded as a successor of the first Pope St. Peter and a representative of Jesus Christ on earth – a “gift” and a “grace from God.”

“I was really (surprised) when I was invited, even though it was short I know it was very intimate because we were just a few,” she said.

According to the Archdiocese of Cebu, Abatol is currently serving as volunteer for the World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon, being part of the event’s international relations team and a “pilgrim manager for the Philippines and Oceania episcopal conferences.”

She also attended previous World Youth Day celebrations in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 2013, Krakow in Poland in 2016, and in Panama in 2019.

She shared she was inspired to attend the World Youth Day after learning about the Philippines' hosting of the worldwide Catholic event in 1995 led by St. John Paul II.