Pope urges young people to be engaged in life, civic society

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis urged young people to embrace hope and play an active role in creating a brighter future while countering the pessimism so many of their peers seem to experience.

"We often meet people who are discouraged because they look at the future with skepticism and pessimism," he told a delegation from the Italian National Youth Council, an advisory body representing Italian young adults, urging them to "not lose the ability to dream."

When a young person ceases to dream, he or she becomes "retired from life," the pope said Nov. 16. "Please, young people, don't retire from life, and don't let hope be stolen from you! Never! Hope never disappoints!"

Young people, he said, are "called to be witnesses to the beauty and newness of life" -- a beauty that "goes beyond appearances" and is rooted in a commitment to serving others.

"Your selfless service for truth and freedom, for justice and peace, for the family and politics is the most beautiful and most necessary contribution you can make to the institutions for building a new society," he said.

Pope Francis asked the council, which represents young people before local, national and European government bodies, "to be a voice for everyone, especially for those who have no voice."

"Today there are so many people who have no voice, so many who are excluded, not only socially, because of the problems of poverty, lack of education, the tyranny of drugs, but also those who don't know how to dream," he said.

The pope encouraged the young people to have faith in God's love for them and in his living presence among them. "If he lives, then hope is not in vain," he said.

"Evil, pessimism and skepticism will not have the last word. And so many young people fall prey to this skepticism," including because of drugs, the pope told them. "At the start of being Christian there is not an ethical decision or a grand idea, but the encounter with a person, it is the encounter with Jesus, who gives life a new horizon" and is the embodiment of hope.

Pope Francis asked the young people to maintain that hope as they encounter challenges in their life and their work, and that they be open to seeking help from others to overcome problems.

"It is necessary in life also to go through conflicts. You need the patience to transform them into the ability to listen, to acknowledge the other, to grow together," he said, explaining that overcoming conflicts "is a sign that we have aimed higher, higher than our self-interest."