Crisis of meaning has youth mental health impact: Cardinal

Cardinal Pietro Parolin spoke at an international conference with the theme “Maps of Hope for a Regional Educational Agenda: Mental Health, Digital Technologies and Education” at the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican. He described the mental health crisis affecting young people as “an emergency requiring structural responses”.

Recalling the Global Compact on Education launched by Pope Francis in 2019, the cardinal pointed to Pope Leo XIV’s recent apostolic letter on education, which calls for a global “educational constellation” capable of fostering fraternity, peace and justice.

The cardinal identified three priorities highlighted by Pope Leo XIV: care for interior life, a “human-centred digital culture” and education for peace. The cardinal also stressed the importance of families in education.

Focusing on mental health, Cardinal Parolin said the data concerning young people are “eloquent and, in many ways, alarming”, particularly following the pandemic, which has seen increasing levels of anxiety, depression and psychological distress among adolescents and young adults.

The Secretary of State warned against reducing the issue solely to a medical problem delegated to healthcare systems.

“The Church has always taught that the human person is an inseparable unity of body, mind and spirit,” he said, adding that an educational model neglecting any of these dimensions is “incomplete” and incapable of responding to the fullness of human needs.

Instead, he said education must provide young people not only with knowledge and skills, but also with tools to understand themselves, manage emotions, build meaningful relationships and discover purpose in life.

He linked this vision to the Christian tradition’s understanding of the “care of the soul”, now often expressed through the language of socio-emotional competencies and psychological wellbeing.

At the heart of the crisis, Cardinal Parolin said, lies a deeper “crisis of meaning”. Many young people, he observed, feel disoriented not because they lack information or opportunities, but because they lack “a horizon of meaning” within which to understand their lives and hopes.

“A society that offers young people every means but no purpose; every connection but no authentic relationship; every answer but no profound question, is a society that ultimately abandons them,” he said.

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Cardinal Parolin: Youth mental health requires structural responses (Vatican News)