Catholic schools and universities should be places where young people can feel loved and seen and then they can then help build a more peaceful and just world, Pope Leo XIV said yesterday. Source: Vatican News.
“Beneath the armour that so many teenagers build around themselves to avoid suffering lies the desire to love and be loved,” he said to participants in the two-day International Congress for Pastoral Care in Schools and Universities, organised by the Dicastery for Culture and Education, concluding at the Vatican today.
“Help the young people you meet to become protagonists of a new way of inhabiting the world, builders of fraternity and of a more just society,” he encouraged.
“Courage is born from a pact of trust: from the experience of someone who believes in you before you believe in yourself,” he added, recalling that Jesus chose the 12 Apostles not “because they were brave” but because “He called them and, through his trust in them, made them capable.”
The Pope stressed the importance of this trust, especially today as “we live in a performance-driven culture that constantly compares and ranks people, sometimes ruthlessly” and a “misguided understanding of meritocracy ultimately fails to respect people”, meaning many members of the younger generation give up before even trying.
“Quite a few young people today are paralysed by the fear of making mistakes, of not being good enough, of being misunderstood, or of failing to live up to expectations,” the Pope reflected.
Additionally, he noted, there are many “false teachers and misleading messages” that “promise to provide quick answers to young people’s questions”.
In this context, the Pope underscored that Catholic schools and universities should be “first and foremost, a ‘home’ – a familiar place where people know they are expected and welcomed,” where “someone who looks you in the eye, remembers your name, notices your absence, and rejoices when you return”.
“Many walk through the corridors of our schools and universities and perhaps feel anonymous,” he continued.
Many students are distinguished by “enthusiasm, generosity, and spirit of service,” but many also “experience forms of existential distress,” such as “wounded families, digital loneliness, feelings of inadequacy, or fear in the face of a future that seems uncertain.”
In a welcoming environment, a student can understand and find meaning in reality and participate in the “shared pursuit of truth,” he explained.
In this regard, the Pope urged those who work in Catholic institutions to stimulate young people’s intellect, to help them encounter Christ and discover “the fruitfulness of the synergy between faith and reason.”
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Pope urges Catholic schools to help young people find new way to live in world (By Isabella H. de Carvalho, Vatican News)
