In three video messages sent to youth gatherings in Peru, Brazil, and Portugal, the Pope called for missionary courage, holy rebelliousness, and a sober use of social media.
Pope Leo XIV sent video messages to three different gatherings of young Catholics over the weekend of July 25-26, urging them toward missionary engagement and warning against spiritual complacency and uncritical use of technology.
The most widely quoted line came from his message to young people in Chota and Cutervo, Peru, gathered for their second Diocesan Youth Day. “Jesus doesn’t want you to be ‘young couch potatoes,’ complacent or content with the comfort of ‘that’s just the way it’s always been done,’” the Pope said, quoting a phrase Pope Francis used at World Youth Day in Krakow in 2016 and on many other occasions.
The Church, Leo told the Peruvian youth, “needs your holy rebelliousness, your pure energy, and your desire to transform situations of suffering into spaces of hope.”
“Serve with joy, especially the most forgotten, for that is where the suffering face of Jesus is found.”
His message to the Halleluya Festival in Fortaleza, Brazil — an annual Catholic music festival organized by the Shalom Catholic Community — pointed to Blessed Carlo Acutis as a model for a generation shaped by screens. Here is the full Vatican text of the message.
He said:
“It is with joy that I participate, even if remotely, in the Halleluya Festival 2026, an initiative that, year after year, through music, praise, and adoration, has touched the hearts of many people, bearing good fruits of evangelization: confessions, conversions, priestly and religious vocations.”
The Pope went on: “Let us draw inspiration from the example of St. Carlo Acutis: he shows us how to keep Christ always at the center, even in our use of technology. Taking him as a model, I advise you to use social networks and artificial intelligence with moderation and discipline, because they can project us into an unreal world, where the ephemeral, mere appearances, and deception end up replacing true values and what truly matters.”
As EWTN News noted, the message connects directly to Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, published in May, which addresses artificial intelligence and human dignity at length. He closed the Brazilian message with a line from Augustine: “Allow the Holy Spirit to rekindle in you a greater love, capable of transforming your youth into an evangelizing force, making each of you a living stone in the construction of the ‘city of peace’ that we so long for — or, as Saint Augustine said, the City of God present in the midst of the city of men.” And with a quote from Benedict XVI: “Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything.”
The third message, sent to young people gathered in Lamego, Portugal, for the second “Rejoice” National Youth Day, addressed the question of vocation directly. “Harness your restlessness so that, in moments of prayer and silence, in dialogue with God, you may ask him: ‘Lord, what do you want me to do in the Church and in the world? What is my vocation?’” the Pope said. He closed with a line that read less like a directive than a personal plea: “Do not let anything or anyone steal your hope.”
Leo also mentioned he is looking forward to World Youth Day 2027 in Seoul, South Korea, reflecting on his recent encounters with young Catholics — from the Jubilee of Youth in Rome to the youth vigil during his trip to Spain — as signs of a Church whose future is very much alive.
