Pope Leo greets members of the Mediterranean Youth Council on September 5, 2025 (@Vatican Media)
Pope invites Mediterranean Youth Council to be signs of
hope
Pope Leo XIV encourages members of the Mediterranean Youth
Council to be signs of hope, saying their “high ideals and creativity” allow
them to make fundamental contributions to peace in the Mediterranean region and
around the world.
By Christopher Wells
Pope Leo XIV on Friday told members of the Mediterranean
Youth Council they are “proof that dialogue is possible; that differences are a
source of enrichment and not a motive for conflict; and that others are always
our brothers and sisters, never strangers, or worse, enemies.”
Made up of representatives from countries bordering the
Mediterranean Sea, the Council is intended to give young people the opportunity
to make their voices heard and undertake initiatives in dialogue with civil
authorities.
A project and a sign
“Your Council is both a project and a sign,” Pope Leo said
during Friday’s audience at the Vatican, pointing first to the project
entrusted to them by Pope Francis, “to restore relationships that have been
broken, to rebuild cities destroyed by violence, to make a garden flourish in
what is now a desert, to instill hope in the hopeless, and to encourage those
caught up in themselves not to fear their brothers or sisters.”
Speaking in both Italian and English, the Pope went on to
say that the young people themselves are the sign: a sign of “a generation that
does not uncritically accept what is happening, that does not look the other
way or wait for someone else to take the first step.” Instead, the Pope said,
“You represent a generation that envisions a better future and chooses to help
build it.”
Signs of hope, heralds of the Gospel
The Holy Father invited them to continue to be signs of hope
by bearing witness to Jesus Christ, by being “heralds of His Gospel,”
especially in the area of the Mediterranean Sea, “from whose shores the first
disciples set out.”
For believers, he said, the future is “one of mutual
acceptance,” rooted in the spiritual heritage of the region, and rejecting the
“blasphemy” of those who would exploit those traditions by using them to
justify violence and armed conflict.
Sowers of peace and unity
“We are called to cultivate prayer and spirituality,
together with action,” the Pope said, “as sources of peace and points of
encounter between traditions and cultures.”
Pope Leo concluded his remarks with an impassioned plea to
young people to not be afraid, but to “sow seeds of peace… be patient builders
of unity… be the voice of those who have no voice… and be light and salt where
the flame of faith and the taste for life are waning.”
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