“Put down the phone,” they ask young people

VATICAN CITY (EFE).— Yesterday, Sunday, Pope Francis recommended that young people “leave the cell phone” and “find people” so as not to become “compulsive typing professionals,” during an event with them in the Italian city of Venice.

“I tell you, do not isolate yourself, look for others, experience God together, follow group paths without getting tired. They could say: ‘But everyone around me is on their phones, glued to social networks and video games,’” the pontiff explained. But he encouraged: “Go without fear against the current: take life in your hands, put yourself in the game, turn off the television and open the Gospel, this is too much, eh? “Put down your cell phone and find people.”

The Pope held this meeting with the young Venetians at the doors of the Basilica of Santa María de La Salud, where he arrived by motorboat after visiting the Giudecca women’s prison on this trip to Venice of just five hours.

He explained to the young people that the telephone “is very useful for communicating,” but asked to be careful when “it prevents them from finding people.”

“Use the phone, okay, but find the people. Know what a hug, a kiss, a handshake, people are. Don’t forget that, use the telephone, but find the people,” the pontiff recommended.

Because, he maintained, “life demands to be donated, not managed, leaving the hypnotic world of video games that anesthetizes the soul.”

“Guys, don’t be compulsive typing professionals, but rather creators of novelty,” he concluded.

Sail by boat

Yesterday, Pope Francis sailed by motorboat through the famous canals of the city of Venice.

The pontiff first visited the women’s prison on the island of Giudecca, where the Holy See created its pavilion for the Venetian Art Biennale, and then headed aboard a boat to Punta de La Salud, the entrance to the famous Grand Canal. .

The boat has been enabled to transport the Pope, with a white chair raised in the back and metal railings so that he can hold on, given his well-known mobility problems that at 87 years old force him to use a wheelchair.

After his disembarkation, the Pope was taken in a small white vehicle among the young people, who received him singing at the doors of the basilica of Santa María de La Salud, built in the 17th century as an offering for the end of the plague that decimated the city. city.

Francis is the first pontiff to visit an installation of the prestigious Venetian Art Biennale, although his predecessors Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI did go to Venice for other reasons.

However, it was not planned that the Argentine pope would get on a gondola, as Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) did in 2011.

After the event with the young people, Jorge Bergoglio would cross the Grand Canal again to reach San Marco Square and say mass and then return by helicopter to the Vatican, after just five hours of official travel (the first of the year outside of Rome). .