Pope calls for action to restore hope among youth to fight drug and digital addictions

In a video message to a conference sponsored by the Italian government, Leo XIV warns of the growth of obsessive Internet use, which is increasingly accompanying drug abuse. For the pontiff, “human and spiritual proposals” must counteract emptiness.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Leo XIV sent a video message to Italy’s National Conference on Addictions, a problem that is increasingly affecting many Asian countries as well.

In his address, the pontiff noted that, “The growth of the drug market and drug use, the pursuit of easy money through slot machines, and addiction to the internet, which also includes harmful content, show that we live in a world without hope, where there is a lack of vigorous human and spiritual proposals.”

“In recent times, alongside addictions such as drugs and alcohol, which continue to be prevalent, new forms have emerged, since the growing use of the internet, computers and smartphones is associated not only with clear benefits, but also an excessive use that often leads to addictions with negative consequences for health, such as compulsive gambling and betting, pornography, and almost constant presence on digital platforms. The object of addiction becomes an obsession, conditioning behaviour and daily life.”

For the Holy Father, these are clear symptoms of a malaise. “[M]any young people think that all forms of behaviour are equal, as they are unable to distinguish good from evil and do not have a sense of moral limits.”

Hence, educational programmes are needed to encourage teenagers and young adults to “become free and responsible architects of their own lives.”

For Leo XIV, government institutions, the Church, and voluntary groups, are called “to perceive among these young people a cry for help and a deep thirst for life, to offer an attentive and supportive presence that invites them to make an intellectual and moral effort, and helps them to forge their will.”

To prevent youth malaise, it is necessary “to boost the self-esteem of the younger generation in order to combat the sense of insecurity and emotional instability fostered both by social pressures and by the very nature of adolescence. Job opportunities, education, sport, healthy living, the spiritual dimension of existence: this is the path to preventing addiction.”

This calls for “a culture that opposes selfishness and utilitarian and economic logic, but which reaches out to others, listening to them, on a journey of encounter and relationship with our neighbours, especially when they are most vulnerable and fragile.”

• vatican
• italy
• national conference on addictions
• digital dependence
• drugs