Stating that “no young person in life can be left on the sidelines,” Pope Leo XIV offered encouragement to participants in the Italian bishops’ Progetto Policoro (Policoro Project), in which dioceses work with youth to create small businesses and cooperatives.
The Pope’s address, delivered in Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace on February 21, had four themes: the centrality of the Gospel, the importance of the Church’s social teaching, the “community as an incubator for the future,” and the remembrance of “fathers and mothers in the Spirit,” from Saints Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena to the present day.