Pope Leo to youth: Jesus doesn’t want you to be couch potatoes

ROME (OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV urged young people not to be “couch potatoes” in a video message on July 25, adding that the Church needs their missionary energy and “holy rebelliousness.”

“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,'” Pope Leo said, quoting the Spanish phrase Pope Francis used during his 2016 World Youth Day speech in Krakow.

In a Spanish-language video message sent to young people in Chota and Cutervo, Peru, for the celebration of their second Diocesan Youth Day, the pope urged young people to “feel the call to be missionaries in your schools, your universities, on your streets and in your fields.”

The Church “needs your holy rebelliousness, your pure energy, and your desire to transform situations of suffering into spaces of hope,” the pope said. “Serve with joy, especially the most forgotten, for that is where the suffering face of Jesus is found.”

It was one of three video messages Pope Leo sent to gatherings of young people around the world over the weekend.

In a July 26 video message to the Halleluya Festival in Fortaleza, Brazil, Pope Leo pointed to the example of St. Carlo Acutis, encouraging young people never to lose the “missionary zeal that is indispensable for transforming this world, which so desperately needs the Gospel.”

“In our day, there are still many people who need to know that it is Jesus who answers their deepest longings, revealing to human beings the truth about themselves,” he said in Portuguese. “Therefore, proclaim with courage that a life without Christ is a life without grace! He is the way, the truth and the life; it is he who gives meaning to existence and to all things.”

“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,” Pope Leo told the Brazilian youth, urging them to use social media and artificial intelligence “in a moderate and disciplined way,” and warning that such tools can pull people into “an unreal world where the ephemeral, mere appearances, and deception end up taking the place of true values and what really matters.”

The pope acknowledged that the enthusiasm felt at a festival like Halleluya can fade over time, and he said sustaining it requires remaining in God’s presence through prayer, with “constancy, perseverance and the firm certainty that the Father in heaven never abandons us.”

Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, he added, “Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything.”

In a third video message, sent to young people gathered in Lamego, Portugal, for the second “Rejoice” National Youth Day, Pope Leo reflected on his own recent encounters with young Catholics, from the Jubilee of Youth in Rome to a youth vigil during his apostolic trip to Spain, and said he is looking forward to World Youth Day in Seoul, South Korea, in August 2027.

“It is always special to be with young people, because the enthusiasm of your faith is infectious!” the pope said.

Pope Leo encouraged young people to “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? Are you calling me to start a family through marriage? Or are you calling me instead to the priestly life? Or to the religious life?'”

“Do not be afraid of the restlessness within you! Make the most of its drive to draw even closer to Christ and to bear witness to the values of the Gospel,” the pope said.

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