By Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) — Addressing an estimated 1 million young people, Pope Leo XIV urged them to forge genuine relationships rooted in Christ rather than ephemeral online connections that can reduce individuals to a commodity.
“When a tool controls someone, that person becomes a tool: a commodity on the market and, in turn, a piece of merchandise,” the pope said during the evening prayer vigil for the Jubilee of Youth Aug. 2. “Only genuine relationships and stable connections can build good lives.”
The pope arrived by helicopter at the Tor Vergata field, roughly eight miles southeast of Rome’s city center, and was greeted with cheers from young people waving flags. Many of the youth were going to camp out overnight, sleeping in tents and sleeping bags on the dusty field, much like the World Youth Day celebration held 25 years ago in the same location.
Countless young people kicked up the dust from the field as they ran alongside the popemobile to catch a glimpse of the pontiff. Pope Leo smiled and waved at the youth, occasionally catching objects and plush toys that were hurled his way.
Exiting the popemobile, he was handed the large Jubilee year cross, which he carried to the main altar, accompanied by dozens of young people.
After beginning the vigil with prayers, the pope engaged in a dialogue with several young people who asked him three questions.
Dulce Maria, a 23-year-old woman from Mexico, spoke of the excitement of online friendships but also of the loneliness that comes from connections that are “not true and lasting relationships, but rather fleeting and often illusory.”
“How can we find true friendship and genuine love that will lead us to true hope? How can faith help us build our future?” she asked.
Pope Leo acknowledged the potential of the internet and social media as “an extraordinary opportunity for dialogue,” but warned that these tools “are misleading when they are controlled by commercialism and interests that fragment our relationships.”
Drawing from his Augustinian spirituality, Pope Leo urged young people to emulate St. Augustine, who had a “restless youth, but he did not settle for less.”
“How did he find true friendship and a love capable of giving hope? By finding the one who was already looking for him, Jesus Christ,” the pope said. “How did he build his future? By following the one who had always been his friend.”
Gaia, a 19-year-old woman from Italy, asked how young people can find the courage to make choices amid uncertainty.
“To choose is a fundamental human act,” the pope responded. “When we make a choice, in the strict sense, we decide who we want to become.”
He encouraged young people to remember they were chosen by God, and that “the courage to choose comes from love, which God shows us in Christ.”
The pope recalled St. John Paul II’s words spoken in the same place 25 years ago, reminding the youth that “it is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you.”
The pope called “radical and meaningful choices,” such as marriage, priesthood and religious life, “the free and liberating gift of self that makes us truly happy.”
“These choices give meaning to our lives, transforming them into the image of the perfect love that created them and redeemed them from all evil, even from death,” he said.
Departing from his prepared remarks, Pope Leo expressed condolences for the deaths of two pilgrims. Pascale Rafic, an 18-year-old pilgrim from Egypt, who died due to a heart condition. Earlier in the day, the pope met with a group of Egyptian youth with whom Rafic traveled to Rome.
Maria Cobo Vergara, a 20-year-old pilgrim from Madrid, Spain, died July 30. While the cause of death was not mentioned in a statement published Aug. 1, the Archdiocese of Madrid said the young pilgrim suffered “four years of illness.”
“Both (pilgrims) chose to come to Rome for the Jubilee of Youth, and death has taken them in these days,” the pope said at the vigil. “Let us pray together for them.”
Lastly, 20-year-old Will, a young pilgrim from the United States, asked the pope how to “truly encounter the Risen Lord in our lives and be sure of his presence even in the midst of trials and uncertainties.”
Recalling Pope Francis’ papal bull for the Holy Year 2025, “Spes non confundit” (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”), Pope Leo said that “hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come,” and that one’s understanding of good “reflects how our conscience has been shaped by the people in our lives.”
He urged them to foster their conscience by listening to Jesus’ word and to “reflect on your way of living, and seek justice in order to build a more humane world.”
“Serve the poor, and so bear witness to the good that we would always like to receive from our neighbors,” he said. “Adore Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, the source of eternal life. Study, work and love according to the example of Jesus, the good Teacher who always walks beside us.”
He also invited young people to pray to remain friends with Jesus and be “a companion on the journey for anyone I meet.”
“Through praying these words, our dialogue will continue each time we look at the crucified Lord, for our hearts will be united in him,” the pope concluded.
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