Spending your time chatting online and dawdling with your smartphone is futile, Pope Francis has reminded, urging thousands of young Germans to spend life on more fruitful activities.
“Maybe many young people waste too many hours on futile
things,” the pope said in a short speech in Rome on Tuesday,
as quoted by Reuters.
“Our life is made up of time, and time is a gift from God, so it
is important that it be used in good and fruitful actions,”
he stressed.
According to Pope Francis, actions certainly not worthy of
wasting one's time include “chatting on the internet or with
smartphones, watching TV soap operas, and [using] the products of
technological progress, which should simplify and improve the
quality of life, but distract attention away from what is really
important.”
The pope was addressing 50,000 German altar servers – young
people who help the priest during religious services – who
arrived to Rome on a pilgrimage.
Dozens of people could be seen filming the pope on their gadgets
as he spoke.
The 77-year-old head of the Catholic Church, who has Twitter
accounts in several languages – including the English-language
@Pontifex with 4.3 million followers – has had
ambivalent thoughts on the internet, calling it a “gift from
God,” but also cautioning that it should be used properly.
According to Pope Francis, the high-speed world of online social
media needed calm, reflection, and tenderness if it was to be
“a network not of wires but of people.”
Dear young people, do not give up your dreams of a more just world!
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) July 3, 2014
Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, has become
extremely popular for his open-minded speeches, as well as for
his noted humility and concern for the poor. In addition to speaking on an end to violence
in the Middle East and eastern Ukraine, the Pope has blasted the
Italian mafia and publicly apologized for the sexual abuse of children
by Catholic clerics.
Recently, the Pope also shared ten tips for living a happy, peaceful and fulfilled
life.