International Youth Day
We recognise their potential
as partners in today’s global society
Youth Day 2022 can mark a change in the way we look at the younger generations: from supporting their inclusion, desired by the UN since 1965, in the goals of development peace and understanding between peoples, to their recognition as partners in a future in which there is still room for humanity to care for the ‘common home’.
Image: www.pharmaretail.it
It is certain that the potential for the future lies in the young and of the young. Attracted by their natural zest for life, they can succeed where adults are failing: changing their approach to the Earth and the many worlds that inhabit it. In this respect, young people are leading partners in radical transformations: those related to social climate justice. In today’s youth, on a planetary level, we find a Franciscan-inspired concern: for nature and for justice towards the poor, inseparably linked to commitment to society and inner peace.
Image: piuculture.it/2020/09/giovani-e-futuro/
In young people’s own potential for the future, there is no room for domination and exploitation of the Earth and its worlds, but rather for amazement and wonder: two necessary attitudes that Pope Francis also emphasises in Laudato sì when he addresses to all “an urgent invitation to renew dialogue on how we are building the future of the planet” (par. 14).
WE CELEBRATE YOUNG PEOPLE'S OPENNESS TO LIFE AND THE UNKNOWN
WE NEED THEIR GLANCES AND THEIR
NON-ADDICTION TO INDIFFERENCE
… ‘if we take into account the complexity of the ecological crisis and its many causes, we should recognise that solutions cannot come from a single way of interpreting and transforming reality. It is also necessary to have recourse to the diverse cultural riches of peoples, to art and poetry, to the inner life and spirituality’. (Laudato sì, 63)
