Describing the mental health crisis affecting young people as “an emergency requiring structural responses”, Cardinal Pietro Parolin warned that today’s society often offers young people “every means but no purpose”. Source: Vatican News.
The Vatican Secretary of State was speaking at the international conference “Maps of Hope for a Regional Educational Agenda: Mental Health, Digital Technologies and Education,” held at the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican, with education ministers, academics and international experts.
Cardinal Parolin said education remains “a pillar of integral human development, peaceful coexistence and social justice”.
He noted, however, that educational systems today face new qualitative challenges, including the integral formation of the person, socio-emotional development, protection of the vulnerable and the responsible integration of digital technologies.
The cardinal reiterated that these challenges cannot be addressed through fragmented measures, but require “structured, multidimensional and long-term cooperation.”
Recalling the Global Compact on Education launched by Pope Francis in 2019, he pointed to Pope Leo XIV’s recent Apostolic Letter on education, which calls for a global “educational constellation” capable of fostering fraternity, peace and justice.
He identified three priorities highlighted by Pope Leo: care for interior life, a “human-centred digital culture,” and education for peace.
Focusing on mental health, Cardinal Parolin said the data concerning young people are “eloquent and, in many ways, alarming,” particularly following the pandemic, which has seen increasing levels of anxiety, depression and psychological distress among adolescents and young adults.
He warned against reducing the issue solely to a medical problem delegated to healthcare systems.
“The Church has always taught that the human person is an inseparable unity of body, mind and spirit,” he said, adding that an educational model neglecting any of these dimensions is “incomplete” and incapable of responding to the fullness of human needs.
Instead, he said, education must provide young people not only with knowledge and skills, but also with tools to understand themselves, manage emotions, build meaningful relationships and discover purpose in life.
Turning to digital technologies, he acknowledged their enormous educational potential.
At the same time, he warned that excessive exposure to digital environments without adequate educational guidance can negatively affect young people’s mental health through attention fragmentation, screen dependency, cyberbullying, social isolation and exposure to harmful content.
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Cardinal Parolin: Youth mental health requires structural responses (Vatican News)
