In a world marked by post-truth and weakening bonds, accompanying young people requires points of reference rooted in reality. Sacred Scripture sheds light on vulnerability and forms freedom. Listening to it engages the whole person and opens the way to discernment. Recent Church teaching unfolds its pastoral implications. Friendship with Christ makes hope, witness and service possible.
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To consider how to accompany young people today, we must examine the cultural soil in which they grow up in the West, in order to identify the challenges and educational issues it presents. Our reflection will then draw on the divine pedagogy at work in Sacred Scripture and on the conciliar vision developed in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, and subsequently explored in greater depth from John Paul ii to Leo xiv. From the atheism discussed by the Council, through agnosticism, to the search for meaning that lives in the hearts of many young people today, what changes in this context call for a renewed approach to accompaniment?
I The Cultural Soil of Youth
Post-truth and the Erosion of Points of Reference
The cultural soil in which young people grow up in the West is deeply marked by currents of post-truth. Allow me to return to this analysis offered by Cardinal Vingt-Trois in 2016, in an inaugural lecture at the Collège des Bernardins:
We can clearly see, from the evolution of our culture and our society, how obscuring or rejecting transcendent and metaphysical points of reference leads to the dismantling of truth and to the theorisation of a form of post-truth knowledge, that is, a truth that has become entirely arbitrary and fragmentary. This is a serious problem for humanity. It is a great difficulty, not only for philosophers, who ultimately continue to survive as best they can by theorising what is happening, but above all it raises a major question about the balance of human existence, about people's ability to reflect on what they experience, on the times in which they live, on the ideas they encounter, and to understand something of how they themselves can find their bearings and a firm foundation for the search for truth1.
The transcendent and metaphysical dimensions give us access to the nature of human beings and of things. This connection with reality gives content to the words we use and significance to language. When this relationship with reality is lacking, it becomes difficult to reflect on what we experience and on how we wish to live. Confidence is lost in the very possibility of passing on knowledge and allowing oneself to be taught. The capacity for wonder that opens the heart and makes learning possible grows weaker. If we no longer perceive this soil of education, which is our relationship with reality, the meaning of teaching and learning is lost, both for educators and for those being educated. Why, then, make the effort?
The Crisis of Language and Authority
It is quite striking to observe that the number of words in common use is declining. Might this shrinking vocabulary be, especially among young people — though not only among them — one symptom of an increasingly inarticulate mode of expression? What happens when words fail us in expressing what we experience? We can no longer engage our reason and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by emotions, which can sometimes find expression in violence. It is understandable that, in the face of the violence now occurring during demonstrations for better study conditions and against declining purchasing power, calls should be made to encourage constructive dialogue. But have we given our young people the means to understand the context in which they live and to express themselves? If the language passed on to them disregards the nature of things, or even denies it, how can it fail to sow profound doubt about their understanding of their humanity and of social relationships? There is every reason to feel unsettled…
The fictitious relationship with reality established by post-truth thus makes communication more opaque, with immediate consequences for relationships and commitments. The crisis of trust in authority, whether parental, educational, political or religious, is one expression of this. If speech no longer corresponds to reality and no longer serves life, the building up of society and the good of the community, authority loses its capacity to hand on what it has received and, with it, its legitimacy. Its exercise then risks descending into an abuse of power that divides, excludes and ultimately becomes self-serving, giving way to chaos.
Emotivism and the Lack of Rootedness
To assert that there is no truth and to abandon the search for it thus leads to the loss of the objectivity needed to find one's place in the world. A so-called “liquid” society no longer allows us to name the good to be sought and the evil to be avoided. Without knowing what we are seeking, we face an existential void that makes it difficult to give direction to our lives and to commit ourselves.
This agnostic culture, which hinders communication, goes hand in hand with a technological culture. When reference to truth and objective good disappears, reason loses its bearings. Emotions, stimulated by technological possibilities, then often become the criterion that guides action. Modes of communication are emerging that are increasingly inarticulate and impersonal, with the risk of delegating relationships and responsibility to AI. It is troubling to see young children so overexposed to screens that they fail to acquire speech. This alerts us to the broader phenomenon of the loss of speech. Pope Francis warned against the risk of conducting relationships through technology in terms of connection and disconnection, according to our desires and emotions2.
This context encourages individualism and isolation, the shift from subjectivism — I am my own point of reference — to relativism — I determine the criteria of my own judgement — and, more specifically today, to a form of chaotic emotivism. The absence of transmission and shared points of reference, combined with a major ecological crisis, weakens our humanity. It encourages both emotional fragmentation and a temptation to retreat into identity: the more scattered we become, the more we seek fixed points of reference with which to identify. This tension raises the question of how difficult it is for younger generations to put down educational and spiritual roots.
Intergenerational Bonds and the Acceptance of Vulnerability
This weakening profoundly affects family bonds, which are undergoing change. A child, born of the union of a man and a woman or of the fusion of male and female gametes, cannot remain unaffected by the unravelling, sometimes from the moment of conception, of the relationships that connect the child to his or her origins. Once these developments become normative, how can younger generations situate themselves within the history of the generations before them and dare to name their suffering? How can they trust a generation whose inconsistencies they experience, often unconsciously? This difficulty further deepens the crisis of authority. A government that has enshrined abortion in the Constitution, legalised euthanasia and is considering surrogacy ratifies this generational and, consequently, anthropological rupture. How can I avoid falling into anxiety when the society in which I live no longer embraces human vulnerability as the very space in which it is built up? If the vulnerability of people at the beginning and end of life, of those who are ill, disabled or living in precarious circumstances, is where our humanity can be put to the test, it also calls us to go beyond ourselves. Vulnerability challenges our creativity to find new paths of life that respect the unconditional dignity of every human being. This is how a society is built. Failure to respect the life of the generations inevitably leads to the collapse of structures, since these can only be established and ordered on the basis of this primary common good, which they are called to promote.
Whether or not young people have grown up in Christian families, they can be profoundly affected by this breakdown of the educational, cultural, social, economic and political world. That world exhausts itself in overconsumption, which exacerbates environmental imbalances. The loss of reference points accompanying this dynamic can, as we have seen, lead to existential anxiety, discouragement and despair, compounded by numerous addictions, depression, radicalisation or violence. But it can also give rise to greater inventiveness and generosity, as well as a deeper search for meaning and foundations. Hence the increase in requests for baptism, confirmation and vocational accompaniment (marriage, consecrated life, priesthood, committed Christian living), and in the founding of businesses and start-ups. It is in this context that we must reflect on how to accompany young people by bearing witness to paths of hope.
II The Word of God as a Path of Education
One need not necessarily work in vocations ministry or with youth groups, or be a novice master or mistress, to accompany the younger generation. The elderly religious sister who, through the ordeal of illness, struggles to remain in hope helps bring this generation to birth into that “yet to come” which is God. Through the way she lives with her limitations, she offers a space in which young people can in turn learn to live with their own limits and vulnerability, and discover in them a deeper access to life. A person's maturation consists precisely in consenting to the gift of a life deeper than the ordeal of evil, suffering and death. This is why our older brothers and sisters, those who are ill or disabled, have a decisive mission: to bring the younger generation to birth into hope, to offer them a culture of life. That is, a culture animated by a word of life capable of integrating vulnerability rather than denying it.
It is important to recognise that one of the greatest educational challenges is to learn to speak again and to rediscover the connection between speech and reality. It is when language truly conveys something that it carries authority, awakens trust and can restore relationships. Language can convey something only when it is capable of bringing the outer and inner worlds together. A word that challenges us or a silence that touches us deeply carries authority. Such a word contains a truth that can awaken, enlighten, educate and console me. This applies to written and spoken language as well as to the language of the body. The way a person grows old, endures illness, bears a disability or dies is expressed through this bodily language, which shapes young people's relationship with life and death. There are eloquent forms of witness that educate and liberate because they bear this word of life that gives rise to a culture of life.
These forms of witness originate in the history of salvation and carry it forward. The biblical tradition offers us a magnificent path of truth and life to make our own anew: the journey of the Word of life described there goes deeper than evil, sin, suffering and death. It shows us the way to that deepest reality, God the Creator and Saviour, who illuminates our histories and our lives. In his address to the world of culture, Pope Benedict xvi recalled how, in the Middle Ages, amid the great fractures in society, the study of the Word of God enabled the monastic tradition to bring the biblical roots of Western culture into dialogue with the challenges of its time. He also indicated how it should be read so that it might be a word that raises up, enlightens, guides and consoles. There is indeed a Christian way of reading the Bible that enables us once more to find our place in this fragile and chaotic world3. He was referring to the traditional doctrine of the four senses of Scripture.
Saint Thomas Aquinas defines the first sense, the literal sense, as the reality signified by the words of the text4. The first task is to learn to read and listen to what is written. To do so, we must move beyond ourselves in order to listen to someone other than ourselves. Exegetical methods can help in this exercise of openness and objectivity, particularly by taking literary genres into account, but it is faith that enables us to receive in depth the reality described there. We must learn to recognise, in the story being told, how the Lord manifests himself, guides and calls, even into our own present. It is divine intervention that gives meaning, transfiguring history by awakening our responsibility so that it may become a sacred history.
Because the Word of God thus takes flesh in my existence, I continually rediscover the reality around me and perceive ever more deeply the meaning of history, but also, at times, the meaninglessness of events. The Word of God, which bears salvation, points me towards an infinite dimension at the heart of finitude and, through it, towards that other reality which is the incarnate Word: Christ, who fulfils the Scriptures and, through his body, the Church, opens me to salvation in the present. This is what is usually called the allegorical sense, which opens me to the realities of faith and to the way they resonate in my life. I shall never finish discovering the significance of the Incarnation, the Redemption, the Trinity, of this Word of life that carries authority and calls for my commitment. How do these realities resonate within me, particularly at the heart of my vulnerability? How do they enlighten me to the point of awakening an attraction towards a particular direction in life or a particular choice? These questions open onto the tropological or moral sense of Scripture: how does the Word made flesh illuminate my being and my existence, my commitments and the meaning of my actions and my life, particularly when I find myself at an impasse, in darkness or in chaos?
This discernment requires attentiveness to the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit5, which are received through an attitude that seeks light at the heart of darkness and life at the heart of finitude. Making a choice does not mean sidestepping or avoiding difficulties, but finding the right way to take them on. Does a particular direction enable me to enter more deeply into the depth, breadth, length and height of the mystery of God along the path of our humanity? Does it help me grow in charity, joy and peace? How does it foster communion and fraternity? How does this education in freedom enable me to live more fully in all the dimensions of my being, spiritual, psychological and bodily? How does the Word of God, put into practice in this way, become a source of eternal life for me? This openness to the ultimate fulfilment of existence belongs to the anagogical or eschatological sense of Scripture.
This way of reading the Bible lies at the origin of the living tradition. It enables us to rediscover the significance of language, the meaning of history and the life of the Church (the way the community is built up), which is also the life of this Word taking flesh in me. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). In both its content and its form, Scripture expresses the divine pedagogy that grounds Christian education and accompaniment. It enables us to discover how the Word becomes flesh and a source of light and life.
To enter into this listening, it is not enough to engage our intellect. All the dimensions of our humanity are involved: freedom, memory, intellect, will, affectivity, imagination and the senses. The whole person is called to allow themselves to be enlightened from the outside in and from the inside out: “You made me a body / an ear; then I said to you: ‘Here I am.’6”
The way we listen is therefore decisive. Intellectual certainty or a good feeling is not enough: it is the fruits of the Holy Spirit that will confirm the direction in life being considered. The intellect may recognise the goodness of a commitment, while affectivity, imagination or the senses remain marked by a form of aversion or hesitation. It is important to remember that our body bears and sums up our history, and that it is with our body that we commit ourselves. If the choice under consideration is salutary, it becomes a source of integration and leads to consolation. A bad choice increases dualism and division, and leads to desolation.
III Accompanying as the Church Accompanies
One may be struck by the way Vatican Council ii, particularly in GS 22, outlines paths for educational, pastoral and spiritual accompaniment:
In reality, the mystery of the human person is truly illuminated only in the mystery of the incarnate Word. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of the one who was to come, Christ the Lord. Christ, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals humanity to itself and makes known the sublimity of its vocation.
This affirmation finds particular expression across the last three pontificates.
Already in the encyclical Veritatis splendor, John Paul ii invited us, through a commentary on Jesus' encounter with the rich young man in Mt 19, to reflect on the relationship between freedom and truth7. The question is not “What must I do?” but “Teacher, what good must I do to obtain eternal life?” It is by turning body and soul towards the incarnate Word that we discern goodness and the path of life. The Polish pope sought to restore content to the word “truth”. This is why, in the third part of the encyclical, he takes up Pilate's question, “What is truth?”, inviting us to discover how the Gospel according to Saint John introduces us to the gift the Lord makes of his life8: “No one has greater love than to lay down one's life for those one loves” (Jn 15:13). Such is the truth of the Gospel, the most realistic word, which opens us to this dwelling in love, from which we can be educated and freely give direction to our lives.
Benedict xvi's encyclicals on the theological virtues illustrate the distinctive character of this pedagogy and education. To enable us to rediscover the content of the theological virtues, he invites us to contemplate, through the Scriptures, how God loves, how he is faithful, and how this God, one and triune, gives us life. He then shows us how the history of salvation is indeed carried forward through the charity, hope and faith of the saints9.
Pope Francis' contribution is to draw our attention to the way the act of faith engages not only our memory, freedom and intellect, but also our imagination, senses and affectivity10. It is indeed the whole person who is continually called to conversion. When Pope Francis invites us to meditate on Scripture, he suggests, as a good Jesuit, that we enter the house and see what is happening there, as in his commentary on Psalm 128 in Amoris laetitia11. He engages our senses and thus invites the conversion of our emotions under the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
Here, already, are three keys to accompanying our young people: educating freedom in its relationship with the truth that is Christ giving his life; perceiving that this gift of Christ fulfils the Scriptures and continually gives meaning to our lives, our history and our language. It is Christ's love that gives charity its true content; it is the gift of his life that opens us to hope: to this gift of a life deeper than death, which reaches me at the heart of my vulnerability. Faith thus presents itself as a path of conversion that engages our whole person, so as to proclaim salvation in every area of our existence.
What does Pope Leo xiv contribute to our understanding and practice of accompaniment? His invitations to listen and to be attentively present to others open the way to a “disarming” accompaniment that itself helps to disarm12. This availability presupposes, as his predecessors had already expressed, accepting the “fragility inherent in human life”, our own as well as that of others, as a means of fostering fraternity rather than a cause for fear13.
The Eucharist introduces us to this way of being present to one another. By giving himself under the species of bread and wine, the Lord meets us in our frailties and weaknesses. He invites us to live from this gift and to become, at the very heart of our vulnerability, witnesses to his love:
Thus, at the Stade de France, addressing young people troubled by anxiety, fragile bonds, screens and uncertainty, Leo xiv reminds them:
There is no failure from which God cannot raise us up: his mercy is our joy. And yet you have mentioned anxiety and uncertainty as obstacles to your enthusiasm. These are very widespread feelings, arising from the precariousness of plans for the future, the provisional nature of emotional bonds and the fragility of relationships. Other feelings add to these and weigh upon your generation, such as screen fatigue and anxiety about climate change or the economic and international situation. Yes, we must listen attentively to these feelings. I invite all of you, dear young people, to keep your hearts open to the sufferings of your peers.
At the same time, the experience of fragility, of every kind of fragility, becomes for a disciple of Christ an opportunity to bear witness. Those who follow Jesus along the path of humble and selfless service are freed from anxiety and recover a new enthusiasm as they experience inner joy and peace; these are not passing or subjective feelings, but [are rooted] in the certainty of faith to which we bear witness together as Church14.
Accepting one's fragility in the light of love for Christ and one's neighbour thus enables it to become a place of witness and vocational discernment. The aim is neither to deny nor to reject one's weakness, but to discover within it the strength of God who comes to dwell there15. This path towards the integration of the whole person unfolds through friendship with Jesus and invocation of the Holy Spirit.
We have seen how the Word of God enables us to rediscover the meaning and significance of this friendship with Jesus, within a dynamic of conversion experienced when, at the heart of vulnerability, we consent to salvation. It is then that we rediscover the content of Christian life. Faith, hope and charity once again guide and enliven all our commitments. Charity, which is this love of God that I receive at the heart of my weakness, gives the virtues their full orientation towards God and neighbour. Prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance then help to unify the person and make their freedom more capable of embracing this good that is deeper than evil.
The same applies to the evangelical counsels. How can we live obedience in conscience without first learning to listen to the Word of God and put it into practice? This reading requires respect for the literal sense of the text and reception of its spiritual sense within the unity of Scripture and the living Tradition of the Church. It gradually forms a judgement enlightened by faith and attentive to reality. I then discover that obedience is a path of freedom. It opens me to evangelical poverty and chastity, understood as a genuine availability to place myself at the heart of this fragile world in the footsteps of Christ, so as to love and serve it better.
The humiliated, the poor and the unloved remind me that I shall never finish understanding what it means to be obedient, poor and chaste in order to welcome the One who Comes through wounded humanity.
Footnotes
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1 A. Vingt-Trois, Inaugural lecture for the opening of the academic year at the Faculté Notre-Dame, Sept. 2016.
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2 Cf. Francis, encyclical Laudato si’, 24 May 2015, no. 47, on relationships mediated by screens, which can be chosen or eliminated at will. The wording “connection and disconnection” here expresses the author's interpretation.
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3 Benedict xvi, “Address at the Meeting with the World of Culture”, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, 12 Sept. 2008, online, accessed 23 Oct. 2026.
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4 Thomas Aquinas, ST I, q. 1, a. 10, corpus and ad 1; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 115–119, on the literal sense and the three spiritual senses of Scripture.
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5 The gifts of the Holy Spirit. Catholic tradition distinguishes seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of God. This enumeration is based on Is 11:2–3, according to the tradition of the Septuagint and the Vulgate, which distinguish piety from fear of God. Cf. CCC 1830–1831; John Paul ii, “Letter to Priests for Holy Thursday 1998”, 31 March 1998, no. 3. The fruits of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul lists nine fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22–23, French liturgical translation). Catholic tradition, following the Vulgate, recognises twelve: charity, joy, peace, patience, longanimity, goodness, benignity, mildness, faithfulness, modesty, continence and chastity. Cf. CCC 1832.
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6 Cf. Ps 39(40):7–8: “You have opened my ears […] then I said: ‘Here I come.’” and Heb 10:5, 7: “You have prepared a body for me […] then I said: ‘Here I am.’”.
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7 John Paul ii, encyclical Veritatis splendor, 6 Aug. 1993, nos. 6–27; Mt 19:16–22, particularly v. 16 for the rich young man's question.
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8 John Paul ii, Veritatis splendor (cited in n. 7), nos. 84–87, particularly no. 84 for Pilate's question; Jn 18:38. No. 87 links freedom to the gift of self in love.
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9 Benedict xvi, encyclical Deus caritas est, 25 Dec. 2005, nos. 2–18, on human love and God's love, and nos. 40–42, on the witness of the saints; encyclical Spe salvi, 30 Nov. 2007, nos. 2–9, on the biblical understanding of hope, and nos. 10–12, on eternal life; cf. also nos. 32–40, on prayer, action and suffering as settings for learning hope. Cf. Francis, encyclical Lumen fidei, 29 June 2013, no. 7: Francis explains that Benedict xvi had almost completed a first draft of the encyclical and that he has taken up that work, adding a few contributions of his own.
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10 Cf. Francis, Lumen fidei (cited in n. 9), nos. 26–28, on knowledge of truth and love, and nos. 29–36, on faith as hearing, seeing and encounter. The account of the engagement of all the person's faculties here constitutes the author's theological reading.
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11 Francis, post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, 19 March 2016, nos. 8–10, particularly no. 8; Ps 128 (127 according to the liturgical numbering).
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12 Cf. Leo xiv, first Urbi et Orbi blessing, 8 May 2025, on “unarmed and disarming” peace; address to the bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference, 17 June 2025, on listening, dialogue and attentive presence. Application to accompaniment by the author.
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13 Leo xiv, “Dialogue with Young People during the Prayer Vigil at the Stade de France”, Saint-Denis, 25 Sept. 2026, response to François Bigot, online, accessed 23 Oct. 2026.
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14 Ibid., response to François Bigot, passages from “We draw from this sacrament” to “to which we bear witness together as Church”.
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15 Cf. 2 Cor 12:9–10; Leo xiv, “Dialogue with Young People during the Prayer Vigil at the Stade de France” (cited in n. 13), response to François Bigot, paragraph beginning “Yes, together we form the Church”.