As the Archdiocese of Liverpool prepares for the 2025 Jubilee, we look back at the last celebration in 2000 and how the year marked a significant milestone for the archdiocese’s youth service.

For Fr Stephen Pritchard, who is now parish priest at Our Lady of the Assumption, Gateacre; it was a memorable year as it was when he became Director of Youth Ministries for the archdiocese.

Fr Stephen recalls: “I was in my fourth year of priesthood when I received the call from Archbishop Patrick Kelly asking me to take up this role and his brief was for me to ‘evangelise young people’”.

Fr Stephen then took up a split role of city centre chaplain in Liverpool as well as developing youth ministries.

He added: “I spent time consulting with young people about what they want the future of the Catholic Church in Liverpool to be and later in 2004, Animate Youth Ministries was established.

“As part of my work in 2000 and to mark the jubilee celebrations, I took a group of young people to World Youth Day (WYD) in Rome. It was the first time the archdiocese has taken a group to WYD.

“It was a great opportunity for the archdiocese to have a presence at the global celebration and following this, I have taken hundreds of young people to the event in Toronto, Cologne, Sydney and Madrid.”

One of the young people who went to Rome in 2000 was 21-year-old Simon Gore, who has since followed in Fr Stephen’s footsteps and now leads Animate Youth Ministries through his role of Director of Youth Ministry.

Fr Simon said: “I was a last-minute addition to the trip, I hadn’t heard about WYD before. One weekend, my parents and I visited a different church for Mass and I saw it advertised in their newsletter.

“The main reason why I decided to go was because I wanted to visit Italy. I contacted Fr Stephen and the pilgrimage had been full, but somebody had dropped out the day before so I was able to take their place.

“I had missed all of the preparation meetings so I didn’t know a lot about what I was about to experience.”

Fr Simon travelled with a coach load of young people to Italy to spend days in the diocese staying with local families before traveling to Rome to attend Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II.

He added: “I have lots of happy memories from World Youth Day, but the one thing that stands out for me is feeling the wider presence of the Church. I’d only experienced going to my local church before, but WYD allowed me to experience the Church from a global scale and it appeared so much bigger and vibrant.

“I had just finished studying for my English degree at university and I hadn’t thought about the priesthood before this point.

“I think my family attending a different church, seeing the notification about WYD in the newsletter and the last-minute drop out were all prompts from the Holy Spirit to consider my vocation.

“I arrived home from WYD in August and I met the Vocations Director in September. Without that experience I’m not convinced I would have thought about priesthood at that time.”

Now 25 years on from this experience, Fr Simon is looking ahead to taking hundreds of young people to Lourdes for the annual archdiocesan pilgrimage in July which will mark the Jubilee theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.

Click here to visit our dedicated Jubilee webpage.