NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE G et off your cellphone and see the world. There is an adventure and happiness for you. That was Pope Francis’s message to young people while he was just in Hungary. He made headlines for talking about peace efforts between Ukraine and Russia. But some of his messages were about the war on human hearts in the West.
In a meeting with youth he said quite bluntly: “Nowadays there is a great temptation to be satisfied with a cellphone and a few friends. What a pity! Even if many people are willing to settle for that, or even if you are too, it is not good or healthy. You cannot shut yourselves away in small groups of friends, talking only on your cellphone. To do so — allow me to say it — is somewhat stupid.”
Nothing seemed to get lost in translation there.
He talked about silence more than once, as a counter to the bombardment everyone is experiencing on screens. And he, of course, as a pope might, encouraged not only a time out but time spent in prayer. The culture — and education — tells us we “have to be fast, efficient, and practically perfect, like machines — even though, dear friends, we are not machines! Then, we often find that we run out of gas and are at a loss for what to do. We have to learn how to stop and fill our tanks, to recharge our batteries.” He added: “Here, though, I would also say: be careful not to indulge in moodiness or brood over your troubles. Don’t waste time thinking about who did this or that to me, questioning other people’s motives. That is not good or healthy either; in fact it is poisonous, and best avoided.”
I noticed recently a book on forgiveness that has just been published by the Evangelical pastor Tim Keller. In a Catholic publication for Easter, there was an exhortation to forgiveness. Politics and social media tend to encourage the opposite. But the message of forgiveness is one seeking freedom from bitterness and seeking a charity that draws us out of ourselves. Pope Francis talked about God’s forgiveness for us during the same talk in Hungary: “God always forgives. Don’t forget it! God always forgives; he is always there to lift us up whenever we fall! With him at our side, we should never be afraid to move ahead with our lives.”
Here in the United States, the epidemic of loneliness and temptation to suicide is so great that the surgeon general is recommending religious faith as a possible solution.
Speaking to academics during his Hungary trip, the pope warned about the culture that is leading to this darkness among the young and beyond: “We can think too of our tendency to concentrate not on persons and their relationships, but on the individual, absorbed in his or her needs, greedy for gain and power, and on the consequent erosion of communal bonds, with the result that alienation and anxiety are no longer merely existential crises, but societal problems.” And he identified a problem that Covid didn’t start but certainly exacerbated: “How many isolated individuals, albeit immersed in social media, are becoming less and less ‘social’ themselves, and often resort, as if in a vicious circle, to the consolations of technology to fill their interior emptiness. Living at a frenzied pace, prey to a ruthless capitalism, they become painfully conscious of their vulnerability in a society where outward speed goes hand in hand with inward fragility. This is a grave problem today.”
In yet another talk with civil authorities, Pope Francis returned to a frequent warning of his about the dangers of “ideological colonization.” In this particular case he identified “so-called gender theory” and a “a senseless ‘right to abortion,’ which is always a tragic defeat.” He said that these seek to “cancel differences.” To the academics, he talked about the importance of awe. To the young people, he talked about dreaming and aiming higher. To the civil authorities, he posed the challenge of working toward a society “centered on the human person,” and he praised Hungary for encouraging people to have babies and setting a public policy aimed at helping families to flourish. But that’s an outlier in the West.
To the academics, the pontiff talked about the importance of humility. “The mystery of life, after all, is disclosed to those who are concerned with the little things,” he said. Culture can preserve and defend our humanity, he continued. “It immerses us in contemplation and shapes persons who are not prey to the fashions of the moment, but solidly grounded in the reality of things.”
Reality is one of the moorings social media is taking our young people away from, and all of us in different ways. There are youth in their late teens and early twenties today who give their testimony about transitioning and detransitioning and their stories often involve TikTok videos putting ideas in their heads about how they won’t be bullied and life will be better if they make such a fundamental change. It doesn’t take long to realize that puberty blockers and top surgery and such aren’t the panacea the virtual world insisted they would be. On the other side, they find themselves sterilized and with a wealth of experience about the lies that they wish they didn’t have.
On screens, we can tend to escape into the troubles of the world. But there is a young person near us who is likely suffering in untold ways. Maybe told to someone anonymous on an app, a likely journey to danger or despair. Not a few of our problems today could be solved by a return to the community around us, a prioritization of the family, and a remembrance that the good may all just be a gift.
Pope Francis will be in Portugal this summer for World Youth Day. His visits there will include the Marian shrine in Fátima, where the message is about prayer and turning away from sin. He will likely sound these notes as part of his continued reality check for a Western people often living anesthetized, as he said when he visited the U.S., or in deep darkness. We have a duty to reach out a hand and shine light.
The more interesting parts of the pope’s talks aren’t usually headlines, but they can change lives.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal‘s Newspaper Enterprise Association.