Pope Leo XIV to Peruvian youth: Do not be afraid to be God's instruments

In a video message on the occasion of Peru’s National Youth Congress, Pope Leo XIV encouraged young people to not be afraid to be God’s instruments in rekindling the hope of many suffering hearts.

The message was shown as part of the July 30–Aug. 2 event, held in Chulucanas, a town in the Piura region, that brought together thousands of young people from throughout the country.

Chulucanas is the site of then-Father Robert Prevost’s first missionary assignment in northern Peru in 1985, when the man who would become pope — and who has held Peruvian citizenship since 2015 — arrived as an Augustinian missionary in this region entrusted to his order.

In his message, the pope thanked the country’s young people “from the heart, for having responded to this initiative, which renews and strengthens the life of the Church.”

“The motto bringing you together for this gathering is: ‘Be brave, Christ lives.’ It is precisely the certainty of the Lord’s living presence in our midst that is the inner fire driving us to be brave and to step out of the comfort of individualism — to become part of a community of brothers and sisters in faith, to forge true bonds of friendship, and thus bear…