In Argentina, faith wears a youthful face: lively, joyful and unashamedly exuberant. It laughs, sings, dances, embraces — embodied by the countless young Catholics who, like their peers everywhere, are building their futures, falling in love, colliding with the challenges of a complex world and with adults who often feel light years away. Yet, amidst the colours and contradictions of their everyday lives, they choose to weave faith into the fabric of their existence.
This September, many of them gathered in Jardín América, in the lush heart of Misiones province, for the Canossian Youth Encounter. For three intense days the small town was transformed into a festival of colour, music and hope, swept along by the irrepressible energy of more than 400 young people from across Argentina and neighbouring Paraguay.
“We didn’t know each other, but within an hour it felt as though we’d been friends forever,” says Martina, 17, clutching her group’s flag. “Here you never feel alone. You feel part of something greater.”
“It was the first time I had ever spoken so openly about hope with strangers,” confides Lucas, 18. “I realised that hope is not an idea but a way of life — a way of building lives and futures that are full, with that little something extra which gives everything deeper meaning.”
That “something extra” was palpable throughout Jardín América during the weekend: in impromptu songs under the sun, in the nightly dances where cultures and accents intertwined, in the tight embraces after moments of shared reflection. Young people visited local families and met with the elderly, offering the simplest yet most luminous of messages: a greeting, a smile, a word of encouragement.
This year’s theme, “Peregrinos de Esperanza” (“Pilgrims of Hope”), came alive not only in the formal moments of prayer but in small, everyday gestures that took on a near-sacred quality: a bottle of water shared during the march, a handkerchief discreetly passed to someone moved to tears, the unrestrained laughter echoing beneath a starry sky.
And, as with all the best celebrations, there was a surprise finale: the announcement that in 2026 the Encounter will travel south to Patagonia, to Luis Beltrán. The news unleashed a wave of applause and jubilation — young people leaping, hugging, already picturing themselves together once more, further afield and even more united.
The Canossian Youth Encounter is not simply a religious gathering. It is a celebration of friendship, hope and future. It is Argentina revealing its youthful, vibrant soul — a nation capable of turning spirituality into festivity, faith into a smile, and a journey into a shared song.
