The New Youcat with a Foreword by Pope Leo: What Questions Do Young People Ask About Love?

The desire for love that lasts forever remains strong among young people, even though today many approach dating and marriage with doubts and new questions. “YOUCAT: Love Forever,” the new project from the YOUCAT Foundation, aims to address these questions. It features a foreword by Pope Leo XIV and an afterword by Pope Francis, and draws on the concerns of young people from more than 30 countries.

The book upholds the spirit of YOUCAT, the Catholic Church’s catechism for young people—an initiative of the New Evangelization that, through publications and digital resources, is present in more than 70 countries. In this volume, young people, married couples, priests, and theologians come together to address issues related to love, relationships, and commitment.

On the occasion of the book’s international launch in Rome, we spoke with Father Joaquín, ecclesiastical assistant to the YOUCAT Foundation, about the questions young people are asking and the significance of committing to a faithful and lasting love.

What sets Amor para siempre apart from other YOUCAT materials?

YOUCAT is best known as the youth catechism of the Catholic Church. But behind the catechisms and catechetical materials is a worldwide network of young people, theologians, and teachers, now present in more than 70 countries. YOUCAT Love Forever makes the participatory spirit behind all our materials especially visible: it brings together answers that are officially approved by the Church and short personal testimonies from young collaborators. Readers encounter both the Church’s teaching and the lived experience of people seeking to put it into practice.

Do you think there is a desire among young people for love that lasts forever—a desire that perhaps contrasts with the image we sometimes have of a generation that lacks commitment?

Yes, because God, who is love himself, has planted this desire in our hearts. We may deny it, mock it, or even distort it. We may try to satisfy it through a thousand forms of shallow pleasure. But we can never silence it completely. The longing to love and to be loved forever is one of the deepest forces in the human heart. Ultimately, it is a longing for God himself. It belongs to who we are as human beings, created in his image.

The book is based on 1,000 questions and suggestions from young people in more than 30 countries around the world. What questions about love and marriage do young people ask most often—and which ones should the Church address?

Let me first stress how beautiful this fact is and what makes the new catechism particularly “Catholic”. Our Faith is so rich and beautiful: different cultures, social backgrounds and languages, enriching one another. For example, the question of how involved parents and friends should be in choosing a lifelong partner can be viewed quite differently in Asian and European contexts. Both can learn from each other. For these perspectives to complement rather than contradict one another, however, they need to be rooted in the same universal truths and in the revelation given to us in Christ.

One particularly pressing issue today is the stability of marriage and how couples can prepare for a lifelong commitment. This is why Pope Francis called for a marriage “catechumenate”: a sustained journey of preparation, followed by accompaniment in the first years of married life. This has become the main theme of YOUCAT Love Forever: helping young people prepare for a love that is faithful and lasts a lifetime.

At a time when many young people are delaying marriage or simply aren’t considering it at all, what would you at YOUCAT say to encourage them to reconsider marriage as a real possibility for their lives?

Of course true love exists in real life! The real heroes are married couples who work on the project of fidelity over a lifetime. Is there anything more beautiful than an old couple holding hands at their fortieth, fiftieth, or sixtieth anniversary?

Think of your own story as a great adventure: two people who lay everything on the line and choose to love each other no matter what. Love, loyalty, and devotion all involve a choice. God promises that when you opt for these, he will be there to help you.

(Taken verbatim from selected passages of YOUCAT Love Forever, Q71, in the authenticated English text.)

The Pope speaks of “a plan that is greater than any human dream” and of a “yes” that “is not just for one day, but for a lifetime.” Why do you think these words are especially important for young people today?

We all carry infinite desires in our hearts. We yearn for a love and a faithfulness greater than any human person can give us. To say that God fulfils this desire is true, but it is not enough simply to state it. We cannot live on abstract ideas of love, and our relationship with God, who is love, has itself been wounded.

That is why God became flesh in Jesus Christ. In him, God has made his love visible and given himself completely to each one of us. Jesus is God’s definitive “yes” to each of us.

When the Church proclaims Christ through her words and makes him present through her sacraments, she proclaims that “love forever” is not only possible, but a reality. Its foundation is more than a human dream: it is an event that took place in history and a through a person who is alive, who knows me and wants to share his love with me today. Because his “yes” endures, we can find the courage to give our own lifelong “yes.”