“Jesus doesn’t want them to be couch potatoes.”
With that phrase, Pope Leo XIV shook up a group of Peruvian teenagers and young people. He did so on 25 July 2026, through a video message sent to the II Diocesan Youth Day of the Prelature of Chota and Cutervo, in Peru, a gathering that brought together young people from the area’s 18 parishes under the motto “Called to Love, Sent to Serve”.
The pontiff was direct. He asked them not to remain asleep or settled into the comfort of ““that’s how it’s always been done””, and called for something few would expect to hear from the Vatican: their “holy rebellion” and their “clean energy”, that desire to transform painful realities into spaces of hope.
His message didn’t stop at words. He invited them to bring the Gospel to their schools, universities, and communities, and to serve joyfully, especially those who are most forgotten. For Leo XIV, faith that is not translated into concrete acts of solidarity remains incomplete.
A call that crosses borders, and that anyone who has ever said “I can’t change anything on my own” should hear.