Pope Leo to Young People: Get Off Your Damn Phone — And Promote Peace
In the Trump era of online rage, Pope Leo’s telling all of us to log off and love harder.
Okay, he didn’t cuss, but he did say it’s time to stop scrolling on your phones and start building peace in the world.
That’s the heart of Pope Leo XIV’s new message to young people and all people of faith: our generation won’t find meaning in the infinite scroll — it only leaves us with “tired minds and empty hearts.”
Instead, Leo is urging you and me to be “builders of peace in society.”
In other words, put down the phone, look up, and become the peacemakers God calls you to be.
This latest letter builds on the pope’s blunt advice to influencers earlier this year.
Back in July, he told Catholic content creators to quit weaponizing religion in internet fights and become “agents of communion” instead.
Pope to Influencers: Stop Being Online Assholes
The pope’s message to influencers was clear — stop weaponizing faith and start spreading compassion online.
During the Trump era, many of us have grown accustomed to engaging in heated online debates with strangers over every controversy.
Pope Leo clearly wants us to break that habit. He’s calling for a radical shift in online culture — from division and outrage to dialogue and compassion.
In his World Youth Day message, Leo thanks young people for the hope they bring to the Church and then practically begs them not to waste that potential glued to their screens.
“Our deepest questions are not answered by endlessly scrolling on our cell phones,” he warns, because that habit captures our attention but leaves us spiritually empty.
The fulfillment of our desires, he insists, comes from going beyond ourselves — reaching out to others and to God. That’s why he implores the youth to become “active artisans of peace” in their communities.
Don’t listen to those who twist faith into a weapon of division, Leo says: instead, work to heal wounds, “remove inequalities and reconcile divided communities.”
At its core, Pope Leo’s message to young people is a challenge to us all.
If you truly befriend Christ, it should show in how you treat others — online and off.
The pope believes today’s young Christians can break the cycle of cynicism and conflict that defined so much of the past decade.
It’s a call to spend less time doom-scrolling and more time actively loving our neighbors.
Pope Leo Tells One Million Young People at 'Catholic Woodstock' to Seek Justice and Serve the Poor
Today's event made clear, for the first time ever, that the most powerful American isn't a president, celebrity, or billionaire — it’s the pope.
The world desperately needs builders of peace, and Pope Leo is looking at you, me, and every person with a straightforward plea — step up.
Letters from Leo is open to anyone who wants to be informed and inspired by our pope — and to turn that inspiration into action that leaves America and the world more just, less cold, and more alive with hope.
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Thank you for reading. I’ll see you on the road.
“This is not about the people in power, it is about the power in people.
Evil always goes too far. Evil always gets a little bit too impressed with itself. It is filled up with hubris.
Evil always goes too far, and because it goes too far, it contains within itself the seed of its own destruction.
We are all we have. Times are tough.
Let’s keep the faith.”
(The Reverend) Senator Rsphael Warnock
You’ll never find your true purpose in life in a hand held device. Find your purpose in your heart and not through social media that could lead you astray, a lost sheep.