Pope urges youth to make radical choices to do good at Holy Year festival

Pope Leo XIV urged hundreds of thousands of young people to have the courage to make radical choices to do good, as he presided over his first big encounter with the next generation of Catholics during the highlight of the Vatican's 2025 Holy Year.

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Leo encountered a sea of people as he arrived by helicopter at the Tor Vergata field on Rome's outskirts for a vigil service of the Jubilee of Youth. Hailing from early 150 countries, the pilgrims had set up campsites on the field for the night, as misting trucks and water cannons spritzed them to cool them down from the 30C (85F) temperatures.

Leo displayed his fluency in speaking to the kids in Spanish, Italian and English about the dangers of social media, the value of true friendship and the need to have courage to make radical choices like marriage or religious vows.

"Friendship can really change the world. Friendship is a path to peace," he said. "How much the world needs missionaries of the Gospel who are witnesses of justice and peace!"

But history's first American pope also alerted them to some tragic news: Two young people who had made the pilgrimage to Rome had died, one reportedly of cardiac arrest, while a third was hospitalized, Leo told the crowd during the vigil service.