Pope Leo XIV urges over one million Catholic young people to spread faith and enthusiasm

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday urged more than a million young Catholics who gathered in Rome for the Youth Jubilee to "spread your enthusiasm and the witness of your faith" when they return to their more than 150 home countries.

His comments were made to hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who were attending the closing Mass of the Jubilee at Tor Vergata in the southern suburbs of Rome.

It was one of the most important events of the holy year originally initiated by the late Pope Francis. It marks Pope Leo's first big encounter with the next generation of Catholics.

"Good morning everyone and have a good Sunday. I hope you have rested a little. Now we begin the celebration of the Mass, which is the greatest gift that Christ has left us," said the Pontiff as he arrived at Tor Vergata for the second day of celebrations.

On Saturday, he held an evening vigil where he crossed the Tor Vergata on the Popemobile and greeted the thousands of faithful who planned to spend the evening on the lawn there ahead of the Sunday Mass.

Descending from his helicopter on Sunday, the Pontiff was greeted by the faithful with shouts, prayers and flags from all over the world.

Pope to young people: 'Fragility is part of the wonder that we are'

During the homily celebrated with 20 cardinals, 450 bishops and 7.000 priests, the Pope invited young people to face their fragility without making it a taboo.

"The fragility of which they speak to us is part of the wonder that we are. Let us think of the symbol of grass: is not a meadow in blossom beautiful?" said Pope Leo.

"It is delicate, made up of slender, vulnerable stems, subject to drying out, bending, breaking, and yet at the same time immediately replaced by others that sprout after them, and of which the former generously become nourishment and fertiliser, with their wear and tear on the soil."

"This is how the field lives, constantly renewing itself, and even during the cold months of winter, when everything seems silent, its energy quivers beneath the ground and prepares to explode, in spring, in a thousand colours."

The Pope said to the young people: "We too, dear friends, are made for this. Not for a life where everything is taken for granted and still, but for an existence that is constantly regenerated in gift, in love'.

Pope Leo quotes Pope Francis: 'If you are restless, you are alive'

The Pope invited the faithful gathered in front of him to accumulate feelings of peace.

"The fullness of our existence does not depend on what we accumulate nor, as as we heard in the Gospel, on what we possess," he said.

"It is linked rather to what we know how to welcome and share with joy. Buying, hoarding, consuming, is not enough. We need to raise our eyes, to look upwards, to the 'things above', to realise that everything makes sense, among the realities of the world, only to the extent that it serves to unite us to God and to our brothers and sisters in charity, making feelings of tenderness, goodness, humility, meekness, magnanimity, forgiveness and peace grow in us".

Pope Leo also quoted his predecessor, the late Pope Francis.

"Each of us is called to confront great questions that do not have a simplistic or immediate answer, but invite us to set out, to go beyond ourselves, to a take-off without which there is no flight. Let us not be alarmed, then, if we discover ourselves inwardly thirsty, restless, incomplete, longing for meaning and a future. We are not sick, we are alive!" he said, recalling the words of Pope Francis quoted during the 2023 Youth Day in Lisbon.

The message for young people afflicted by wars

During the Angelus at the end of the Mass, the Pope thanked the crowd of young people who had come from all over the world to participate in the Jubilee.

"It has been a cascade of grace for the Church and for the whole world, I want to thank you one by one with all my heart".

He also sent a message of hope to the youth of Ukraine and Gaza, saying: "We are with the young people of Gaza, with the young people of Ukraine and of every land bloodied by war."

"You are the sign," he continued, "That another world is possible. A world of friendship in which conflicts are not resolved with weapons but with dialogue."

The next Youth Day in South Korea

The celebration ended with the official announcement of the next World Youth Day.

"The pilgrimage of hope continues and will take us to Asia. Young people from all over the world will gather together with the Successor of Peter to celebrate World Youth Day in Seoul, Korea, from 3 to 8 August 2027," the Pope said.

"'Have courage. I have overcome the world' is the theme. It is precisely the hope that dwells in our hearts that gives us the strength to proclaim the joy of the risen Christ over evil and death, and of this, you pilgrims of hope, will be witnesses to the ends of the earth. Appointment in Seoul. Let us continue to hope together, to dream together".

The Pope also shared some tragic news. Two young people who had made the pilgrimage to Rome had died, one reportedly of cardiac arrest, while a third was hospitalised.