You have to admit it. This one really is the Pope's youth. These "z" kids, tiktokers, Instagramers..., those who do not call by phone and communicate by emojis, those who consider classical music to La Oreja de Van Gogh and the BackStreet Boys, are those who have filled, by the hundreds of thousands and even over a million, the esplanade of Tor Vergata in a Jubilee with a WYD flavor.
And we have to admit, yes, they are better than the previous generation. Because these young people who record every step to Tor Vergata have forged their faith without the assumption humus Christianity from their parents and grandparents. They have received more scorched earth than anything else, and have made, from those ashes, fertile soil for a new Christian rebirth, authentic, personal, that wants to speak to Christ from heart to heart.
No one has forced these boys and girls to go to Mass, to go to confession on their knees, to receive Holy Communion with devotion... In fact, many of the parents of those who have filled the streets of Rome and the parishes of their cities every week are among those conventional Catholics of weddings, baptisms and communions.
They are the committed children of "non-practicing" families who turn the hackneyed story that "the church is for old ladies" on its head.
The future is not hopeful, the present is. The present of an adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in which the breath of the journalists could be heard and the tears of an emotional Leo XIV could be glimpsed. The present of a Mass in which the Pope called on young people to "aspire to holiness". The present of hundreds of priests busy confessing, speaking and restoring hearts.
The fruit of this Jubilee of Hope has been to materialize this cardinal virtue in those hundreds of thousands of young people who, taking the baton from many others, arrive at their homes these days tired, perhaps not very clean, but with the apostolic fire of a new Pentecost.
Director of Omnes. Degree in Communication, with more than 15 years of experience in Church communication. She has collaborated in media such as COPE or RNE.
