Pope Leo XIV has marked Pentecost Sunday by describing how the Holy Spirit “is the Gift that opens our lives to love” and opens borders in people’s hearts. This is in sharp contrast to what he discussed as the isolating impact of social media and modern communication platforms that leave people “confused and solitary travellers” overwhelmed by the crowd.
“The Spirit accomplished something extraordinary in the lives of the Apostles,” said the Pope, speaking on the Solemnity of Pentecost that marks the day when the Holy Spirit came down on the 12 Apostles, ten days after the Ascension of Jesus.
“Following Jesus’s death, they had retreated behind closed doors, in fear and sadness,” Leo continued. “Now they receive a new way of seeing things, an interior understanding that helps them to interpret the events that occurred and to experience intimately the presence of the Risen Lord.
“The Holy Spirit overcomes their fear, shatters their inner chains, heals their wounds, anoints them with strength and grants them the courage to go out to all and to proclaim God’s mighty works.”
He said the presence of the Holy Sprit has the same effect on anyone, describing how it “breaks down our hardness of heart, our narrowness of mind, our selfishness, the fears that enchain us and the narcissism that makes us think only of ourselves”.
“The Holy Spirit comes to challenge us, to make us confront the possibility that our lives are shrivelling up, trapped in the vortex of individualism. Sadly, oddly enough, in a world of burgeoning ‘social’ media, we risk being ever more alone,” Leo continued.
“Constantly connected, yet incapable of ‘networking’. Always immersed in a crowd, yet confused and solitary travellers.
“The Spirit of God allows us to find a new way of approaching and experiencing life. He puts us in touch with our inmost self, beneath all the masks we wear.
“He leads us to an encounter with the Lord by teaching us to experience the joy that is his gift. He convinces us, as we just heard in Jesus’s words, that only by abiding in love, will we receive the strength to remain faithful to his word and to let it transform us.”
The Pope described how the Holy Spirit also opens borders in people’s relationships with others, making them capable of opening their hearts to their brothers and sisters, “overcoming our rigidity, moving beyond our fear of those who are different, and mastering the passions that stir within”.
“The Spirit also transforms those deeper, hidden dangers that disturb our relationships, like suspicion, prejudice or the desire to manipulate others. I think too, with great pain, of those cases where relationships are marked by an unhealthy desire for domination, an attitude that often leads to violence, as is shown, tragically, by numerous recent cases of femicide,” Leo said.
On Saturday, 7 June, the pontiff celebrated the vigil Mass for Pentecost, during which he spoke to a great crowd, estimated by the Vatican at around 70,000 pilgrims and individuals, taking part in the Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations and new Communities.
He told them God created the world so that “we might all live as one”, adding that “Synodality” is the ecclesial name for this.
“It demands that we each recognise our own poverty and our riches, that we feel part of a greater whole, apart from which everything withers, even the most original and unique of charisms.
“Think about it. All creation exists solely in the form of coexistence, sometimes dangerous, yet always interconnected,” Leo said on Saturday evening.
“May your meetings and your communities, then, be training grounds of fraternity and sharing, not merely meeting places, but centres of spirituality.
“The Spirit of Jesus changes the world because he changes hearts. The Spirit inspires the contemplative dimension of life that rejects self-assertion, complaining, rivalry and the temptation to control consciences and resources.
“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. An authentic spirituality thus commits us to integral human development, to making Jesus’s words a reality in our lives. When this happens, there is always joy – joy and hope.”
The Pope continued: “Evangelisation, dear brothers and sisters, is not our attempt to conquer the world, but the infinite grace that radiates from lives transformed by the Kingdom of God.
“Evangelisation is always God’s work. If at times it takes place through us, it is thanks to the bonds that it makes possible. So be deeply attached to each of the particular churches and parish communities in which you cultivate and exercise your charisms.
“Together with the bishops and in cooperation with all the other members of the Body of Christ, all of us will then work together harmoniously as one.
“The challenges facing humanity will be less frightening, the future will be less dark and discernment will be less complicated … if together we obey the Holy Spirit,” Pope Leo said.
The new Pope has long expressed concerns about modern media and how the Church must navigate the shifting communications landscape, warning in a 2012 interview about sensory distractions aimed at keeping the congregation “awake” or “involved”, when true liturgy should be an encounter with God.
On 12 May 2025, Pope Leo XIV addressed journalists who had come from all over the world to the Vatican to hear from the new pontiff.
In his address, Pope Leo discussed the great challenges of the modern media landscape, especially the impact of artificial intelligence, highlighting the vital importance for those shaping narratives of maintaining values and ethics when covering the ever shifting and increasingly technologically driven world we live in.
He also highlighted the need to move “beyond stereotypes and clichés” when it comes to media representations of Christian life and the life of the Church itself.
Follow us on all social media platforms @dailyquery for news and analyses around the globe.
