Let us begin with the sign of the cross, with which we were all baptized.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Peace be with you.

Your Eminence, Your Excellencies, dear brothers and sisters,

I joyfully greet you at the beginning of this Congress on school and university pastoral care. I thank the Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, the Secretaries and the Officials, as well as those who will be tasked with promoting reflection and study; and I joyfully welcome all of you who have come from so many parts of the world. I congratulate you on the work you carry out in educational and academic institutions for the proclamation of the Gospel and the dignity of the person.

It is essential that school and university pastoral care be able to respond to the desire that each person carries within, and to walk a path together, both human and Christian. Those to whom your ministry is directed are marked by the enthusiasm, generosity and spirit of service so typical of young people. And yet, how many students also live in conditions of existential distress! Wounded families, digital loneliness, a sense of inadequacy or fear before a future that appears uncertain. Many walk the corridors of our schools and universities and perhaps feel anonymous. How important it is that Catholic schools and universities be, first of all, a "home", a familiar place where one is expected. The first proclamation often passes through a style of welcome: someone who looks you in the eye, who remembers your name, who notices your absence, who rejoices at your return.

In a welcoming environment, the student can express his or her deep desire to understand, to make sense of reality. Here we touch the proper vocation of schools and universities: the common search for truth. I therefore encourage you to stimulate the intelligence of young people, to value their questions. May your passion – especially for those of you working in Catholic institutions – be to let young people experience the beauty of the encounter with Christ, the fruitfulness of the synergy between faith and reason, between the knowledge of faith and the various other forms of knowledge.

School and university pastoral care is called to accompany the slow germination of thought, to teach how to discern and to search with perseverance. Educational processes "need time to mature, to engage with reality beyond appearances, and a patient journey". We must "protect our young people […] from that subtle seduction that makes human thought seem useless precisely when it is most needed" (Encyclical Letter Magnifica humanitas, 140).

Not a few young people today are as if paralysed by the fear of making mistakes, of not measuring up, of being misunderstood, of not meeting expectations. We live in a culture of performance that constantly compares and ranks, at times mercilessly. A misunderstood meritocracy ends up failing to respect people. For this reason, many end up giving up even before trying.

Help the young people you meet to be protagonists of a new way of inhabiting the world, builders of fraternity, of a more just society. Courage is born of a pact of trust: from the experience of someone who believes in you before you believe in yourself. Jesus did not choose the Twelve because they were courageous; he called them and, with his trust, made them capable. To our young people we must be able to repeat the words the disciples addressed to blind Bartimaeus: "Take heart! Get up, he is calling you!" (Mk 10:49).

Beneath the armour that so many adolescents build for themselves so as not to suffer lies the desire to love and be loved. School and university pastoral care will be all the more fruitful the more it concentrates on the education of the heart. To educate the heart to compassion, to gratitude, to the capacity to be touched by the pain of others; to educate it to praise and to the desire for God. Service to the poor, volunteering and care for creation are not accessory activities, but places where the heart learns to expand. Let us not forget: charity and prayer are inseparable.

Dear brothers and sisters, false teachers and deceptive messages promise to answer young people's questions quickly. You, instead, have chosen to do something greater: to walk with them along the road, until they discover the gifts that God has already placed within them. Like the Risen One with the disciples of Emmaus, who draws near, walks with them, listens, explains, makes their hearts burn and, finally, lets himself be recognized in the breaking of the bread (cf. Lk 24:13-35). May his Holy Spirit always enlighten and sustain your service. May Mary Most Holy, Seat of Wisdom, accompany you, together with my blessing. Thank you.