Pope Leo writes a letter to Popotus, an Italian weekly supplement dedicated to children that is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and invites everyone to keep a \u201cchildlike outlook on reality\u201d in order to \u201cremain human.”<\/p>\n
Vatican News<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cIn these days of great concern over wars that threaten the future of humanity,\u201d we must look to children, because their \u201clost\u201d eyes can lead to true conversion, Pope Leo XIV wrote in a letter to the readers of Popotus<\/a>, the weekly supplement dedicated to children as part of the newspaper of the Italian Bishops\u2019 Conference, Avvenire<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n We must also become a little like children again, having \u201cpure eyes\u201d to look at reality so as to \u201cremain human,\u201d the Pope continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n Popotus\u00a0is celebrating the 30th\u00a0anniversary of its first issue, which came out on March 23, 1996.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The dangers of the digital age and AI<\/b> <\/p>\n In the letter, addressed to the director of Avvenire, Marco Girardo, the Pope thanked the outlet for their work in sharing current events with children: \u201cThe good news that encourages us and the bad news that can teach us not to repeat the same mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking then at our current time period, he called on parents and teachers to protect children \u201cfrom an inhuman idea of information and education.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll of us, especially today in the digital age and the era of artificial intelligence, need ongoing education. And to remain human, we need to preserve a childlike outlook on reality,\u201d the Pope emphasized.<\/p>\n Pope Leo also warned against letting \u201cchildren come to believe they can find in AI chatbots their best friends or the oracle of all knowledge, thus dulling their intellect and their capacity for relationships, numbing their creativity and their thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe must safeguard their childhood,\u201d the Pope urged, \u201cand guide their growth so that they may become protagonists of a renewed world.\u201d<\/p>\n Restoring beauty to the world<\/b> <\/p>\n Pope Leo then addressed the young readers, assuring them that \u201cindeed, restoring beauty to the world is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou can help adults to see it\u2014through this newspaper created for you\u2014with renewed wonder in its grace, to think about it with trust, and to build it without prejudice,\u201d the Pope insisted.<\/p>\n \u201cGrowing up,\u201d he continued, addressing today\u2019s readers and recalling those of the past, now in their thirties, \u201cyou will discover ever new things and create new things yourselves; but there are things you must always preserve from these early years of your life: trust in those who love you, the universal language of love, the disarming power of a smile, the courage to say sorry, the beauty of making peace.\u201d<\/p>\n A gaze with pure eyes<\/b> <\/p>\n The Pope also recalled Jesus\u2019 words to his disciples: \u201cUnless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n A message that the Pope highlighted is still valid today: \u201cBeing like children is not going backward, but keeping a key to seeing the essence of everything, to finding surprising answers even to the most difficult questions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps only by looking into the lost eyes of children in the face of the barbarity of war can we be converted,\u201d he wrote. \u201cRelearning to look into one another\u2019s eyes and to look at the world with pure eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n He concluded his letter by expressing his gratitude to parents and teachers for their \u201ccare\u201d and \u201clove\u201d in educating their young \u201ccompanions on the journey.\u201d He invited them to help children ever more \u201cto bring out the beauty within them and to express it in ever new ways, relating to history, to memory, to life\u2014each according to their own uniqueness, which is a gift from God.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo writes a letter to Popotus, an Italian weekly supplement dedicated to children that is celebrating its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,3914,18,19,17,32877,2515,4722,82,1545],"class_list":{"0":"post-398511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-children","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-peace","16":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","17":"tag-science-and-technology","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116274140745522156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}