The recently concluded Youth Jubilee was a time of intense spirituality and reflection for the Church and its youngest members. This event, desired by Pope Francis, offered a unique opportunity for encounter, discussion and deepening in a context of global community.
One of the most significant aspects of this Jubilee has certainly been the emphasis on the voice of young people within the Church. Pope Francis has often stressed the importance of listening to young people, not only as recipients of the Christian message, but as leading actors in building the future of the Church. “Let us not be alarmed if we discover ourselves inwardly thirsty, restless, incomplete, longing for meaning and for the future. We are not sick, we are alive!” Pope Francis had said in August 2023, a message echoed today by Pope Leo XIV, adding not to quench one’s thirst with “ineffective surrogates.”
We spoke about this with Vincenzo De Lucia, Referring Interlocutor of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, whom we met during his trip to the United States, preparatory to the United Nations Minority Forum.
First, we would like to know more about the Pontifical Academy of Theology.
In his Encyclical Letter Laudato sì, No. 114, Pope Francis commits Theology to experience a decisive turning point, a paradigm shift, a “courageous cultural revolution,” so that the awareness of being a fundamentally contextual theology is strengthened. Faced with this renewed mission, the Pontifical Academy of Theology, chaired by H.E. Archbishop Antonio Staglianò, is called to develop transdisciplinary dialogue with other scientific, philosophical, humanistic and artistic knowledge, with believers and non-believers, with men and women of different Christian denominations and different religions.
What are your reflections in relation to youth difficulties?
My first consideration goes to the fragility of youth identity. In fact, one of the most significant challenges that the contemporary world presents is the fragility of young people in their search for a stable identity. The fragmentation of reference points, values and perspectives deeply marks their daily lives. Moreover, we observe a spontaneous tendency to resist any proposal that requires continuity of dedication. This phenomenon seems to reflect an inherent fear: that of investing one’s existence in a cause that goes beyond the immediate and superficial. And this is compounded, more and more frequently, by a lack of reflective capacity. This weakening of thinking extends to desires, values, judgments, decisions, commitments and goals. The person thus becomes less convinced of the importance of moral values over his or her needs for gratification, affirmation and autonomy.
What are your thoughts on young people as they relate to the concepts of spirituality and forgiveness?
These are very broad concepts that require a variety of insights. What I can summarize is that we live in a culture characterized by a growing difficulty in understanding spirituality and forgiveness. Young people, in particular, are faced with provocative questions that interrogate their very existence. How is it possible to talk about the dimension of forgiveness in a context that exalts consumption and material possession? And, taking into consideration some fundamental challenges regarding spirituality, how can authentic fraternity and generosity be promoted in a society that celebrates individualism and narcissistic self-realization? In this landscape, the issue of forgiveness takes on a crucial dimension. Forgiveness requires an act of will and deep reflection, but in a culture that celebrates the immediate and the superficial, it runs the risk of being relegated to an abstract concept, distant from daily life.
Can theology go to meet what is described?
Theology can offer a vision of spirituality and forgiveness that goes beyond the mere absence of resentment: forgiveness is an act of grace, involving reconciliation with the Supreme Being, with others and with oneself. It is a path of liberation, which not only heals relational wounds but also invites young people to build a culture of fraternity and solidarity. Proposing forgiveness in this context means facing the challenges of the contemporary world with a vision that values commitment, responsibility and the ability to build authentic bonds. It is an invitation to look beyond one’s immediate needs to a deeper horizon of meaning. In this context, there emerges a strong thirst for meaning and significance, a desire to discover reasons for living and directing one’s choices. It is clear that the identity journey must start from a single “fragment,” leading young people toward the discovery of a larger whole, before they are forced to live in a state of spiritual paralysis. If young people are the future, the tools needed to create it must be provided.
And how should the age-old youth debate between faith and science be interpreted?
On this I rely on what has been expounded by a more authoritative interlocutor, Fr. Maurizio Bloise, a distinguished member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology:
“They may seem like two distant macro areas or macro issues. And they should always be addressed without falling into useless speculation: the last few years have been among the most serene on this debate, so much so that just these days we are rethinking, on a theological level, Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II’s encyclical published in 1998, which explores the relationship between faith and reason. Ratzinger, then Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, participated in the presentation of the encyclical along with others, stressing its importance. The encyclical states that faith and reason are like two wings that enable man to rise to the contemplation of truth. A text that speaks of confronting and dialoguing with all sciences and scientific realities.
Theology or theologians are not a repository of faith, of content. Sure, they may have a somewhat different attitude, but certainly not “better” than others. Think for example of the main issue of recent times: everyone is running after artificial intelligence. An aside: I think that in Italy, on these topics, we write a lot, read very little and talk about them very badly. However, on artificial intelligence there are comments or even concerns. In my opinion, the problem is when the dialogue, in a broad sense, becomes one-way. And one-sided reliance on something, particularly in science, can become misleading, to say the least. Artificial intelligence is not as intelligent as human beings. It will certainly have all those capabilities. But the creator of this tool is still Man. Perhaps the most important element in addressing this argument is not to rely on improvisers, but rather on those who study the phenomenon carefully, passionately and professionally.”
One last question: in what spirit can the Pontifical Academy of Theology make a positive contribution to young people?
For this answer I rely on the most distinguished witness to that spirit, the President of the Pontifical Academy of Theology H.E. Msgr. Antonio Staglianò, who gave this testimony on the occasion of the inauguration of the new headquarters:
“I welcome you with a line from a poet, Hölderlin: “He who has thought the deepest, loves the most alive, the purest.” It is a passage that strongly clutches thought with living, with life. For when a thought is authentic, it is born from life, born from the lived, and ends in life.
Pope Francis with an Apostolic Letter in the form of a Motu proprio – Ad Theologiam promovendam, with which he approves the new statutes of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, calls for a sapiential enlargement of the boundaries of theological reason, as already proposed by Benedict XVI to all other critical knowledge. Such an Apostolic Letter is really a source of great richness to originate a thought, even a well-organized one, and we could say in this side even a scientific one, a kind of theological, sapiential and cultural project that really helps us to help people’s lived life, people’s life of faith, Christian society within pluralistic, multi-religious, multi-racial societies. It also helps us imagine a vision of the human that is resilient to so many barbarities with a human face that the “hypermarket society” is putting in front of us, and that so allures today’s youth. Millions of “followers” go along with anthropological aestheticisms that are utter emptiness. So the real novelty of the Pontifical Academy of Theology is the imagination of sapiential theology, theology that tastes of the flesh, of the people. Through that we enter into this incarnation, a thinking oriented to the lives of people.
“You are a sign that a different world is possible: a world of fraternity and friendship, where conflicts are resolved not with weapons but with dialogue,” Leo XIV stressed, thus reiterating that peace is possible where there is the will to achieve and maintain it.
The article Youth Jubilee, reflections on the new generation comes from TheNewyorker.
