Pope Leo XIV Urges Youth Toward Real Relationships In A Digital Age
(ANALYSIS) In a dusty Roman field echoing with youthful energy and hope, Pope Leo XIV delivered a clear and urgent message to over a million young people gathered for the Jubilee of Youth: “You are not a product. Your relationships are not transactions. And your life must be rooted in something deeper than algorithms.”
Speaking this past Sunday from Tor Vergata, Pope Leo's evening prayer vigil was more than a nostalgic reprise. It was a declaration of priorities — spiritual, pastoral, and increasingly, digital — for a pontiff determined to guide the church into a new technological and cultural era.
His address, warm yet firm, acknowledged the beauty and power of digital platforms but forcefully warned against their distortion. In fact, he got a welcome typically reserved for rock stars.
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“When a tool controls someone, that person becomes a tool: a commodity on the market and, in turn, a piece of merchandise,” he said, speaking to a generation immersed in online spaces but often starved for real connection.
This message was more than a mere moral reflection. It’s the foundation of Pope Leo XIV’s broader strategy this summer: Reasserting the church's role as a moral compass in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, data-driven relationships and digital interactions.
Addressing questions from young pilgrims, he didn’t shy away from the contradictions of online life. Dulce Maria, a 23-year-old from Mexico, voiced what many of her generation feel: Virtual friendships can excite, but also isolate amid an increase in mental health concerns among teens.
The pope’s response was telling. While affirming the internet as “an extraordinary opportunity for dialogue,” he cautioned against social media controlled by “commercialism and interests that fragment our relationships.”
This critique echoes a core theme of his papacy — the human person cannot be understood, treated or “engaged with” as a consumer good. His references to commodification signal a deeper anxiety about how data-driven systems — from social platforms to AI recommendation engines — subtly reshape our desires and choices.
The pope’s words implicitly call out not only Silicon Valley, but a culture that increasingly blurs the line between identity and performance, connection and consumption. Though not directly referenced during the vigil, the specter of artificial intelligence hovers over the pope's remarks.
Over the past few months, the Vatican under the pope’s leadership, has hosted several symposia on AI ethics — including one this past June — signaling the urgency with which the Holy See views the issue. For example, the Dicastery for Culture and Education even released a draft document calling for "human-centric AI" that resists reducing people to “predictive patterns.”
At the same time, this pope is trying to get Catholic influencers to work as missionaries to spread the faith. In fact, Pope Leo’s Jubilee vigil called for something AI and the internet can’t replicate: Vocation. That is, the discernment of who one is called to be in relationship with others and with God.
“To choose is a fundamental human act,” he said. “When we make a choice, in the strict sense, we decide who we want to become.”
Two days after saying that, the pope had a message for Gen Zers gathered this week at the 36th International Youth Festival in Medjugorje: “No one walks alone. We encourage each other. We ignite each other. The flames of our hearts unite to become one great fire that lights the way forward. You too, dear young people, are not solitary pilgrims. This path toward the Lord is one we walk together. That is the beauty of a faith lived out in the church.”
For Pope Leo, meaningful choices — in love, work or religious life — are acts of liberation, not algorithmic outcomes. This may be one of the most subtle, yet radical, challenges the church can offer to a world shaped by AI: That human beings are not reducible to data, and that the most important decisions in life cannot be optimized — they must be discerned.
In practice, Pope Leo is reshaping how the church prepares young people for this world. Over the summer, several Vatican-backed initiatives have begun promoting “digital discernment,” including training programs for youth ministers on social media literacy, AI ethics and spiritual formation online.
A key goal is to help young Catholics integrate their faith into a digital culture without losing sight of the deeper questions: Who am I? What am I called to do? Who is God calling me to become?
Pope Leo’s invocation of saints like Augustine and Pope John Paul II were not accidental. Augustine, the restless seeker, found truth not in superficial connection but in encounter with Christ. Saint Pope John Paul II, whose words the pope quoted — “It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness” — offered a similar vision for a generation now facing an even more complex reality.
As he concluded the vigil, Pope Leo invited the young people to pray to remain “a companion on the journey for anyone I meet.” It was a simple invitation — but one that cut through the noise of platforms and performances, algorithms and AI.
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged.