young people

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Pope Leo XIV, screens culture, fathers and symbolism in "Toy Story 5"

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Pope Leo XIV, screens culture, fathers and symbolism in "Toy Story 5"

Vatican watchers rarely scan papal speeches looking for links to Hollywood.

But, at the Vatican Summer Youth Camp, Pope Leo XIV offered an unusually timely update on faith in a digital age.

"The family that is together, it is not enough that we are all there. Each, they look at his phone," the pope said. Even if believers "have the Bible and some prayers in the phone, God doesn't want to look at the phone: God wants to look at our hearts, our life. And therefore, be free from these things that in themselves can be fun, a help, a nice thing."

After all, he added: "We are not all plugged into a cable. We are human beings."

That June 22 talk came three days after "Toy Story 5" reached theaters, with Sheriff Woody, Buzz Lightyear and cowgirl Jesse urging their young owner, Bonnie, to escape the grip of her digital Lilypad tablet.

The pope's words were "remarkably Toy Story-coded," wrote Alyssa Murphy, of the National Catholic Register. In Pixar's parable, Bonnie's parents took a stand and deleted the social-media app that mean girls were using to mock her affection for old-fashioned toys.

That's the good news, noted Murphy. The bad news? "Currently sitting on store shelves nationwide is a physical 'Lilypad' device … marketed to preschoolers between the ages of 3 and 5. … As a beginner device, the item description reads: 'Stay connected with Jessie, Buzz, Woody and the Tech Trio by texting them.'"

Meanwhile the Australian Psychological Society has published a survey of international research showing that most children, by age two, have access to digital devices, including some babies as young as six months old. By age four, 75% of children have their own digital devices. In the end, the more time children gaze at screens, the less they play, talk, sleep and, thus, develop their minds and bodies.

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Memory eternal: Robert Sloan's final advice on Christian higher education

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Memory eternal: Robert Sloan's final advice on Christian higher education

Year after year, faith-based colleges produce waves of upbeat brochures, social-media appeals and videos for parents and their children.

The presidents of these institutions should study these materials closely, said Houston Christian University President Robert B. Sloan, Jr., at the January 2026 conference of the International Alliance for Christian Education. 

"All of the brochures in the world, declaring in glossy print the Christian claims of an institution, cannot overcome the failures of personnel to embrace, expound and affirm the Christian identity of the institution," said Sloan, who led Baylor University, his alma mater (and mine), before his 2006 move to Houston. "If the recruiting materials and fundraising newsletters do not match what really goes on in the classroom or in student life, you may expect not only disappointment but cynicism and, eventually, conflict."

Thus, presidents must have courage when hiring faculty, he stressed.

"When you hire someone," said Sloan, "you should never accept their mere consent, no matter how good their credentials are academically, to 'appreciate' or 'be sensitive to' your culture and character. I used to know of a situation where an interviewer would refer to the 'expectations of our constituents' and then ask, 'Are you all right with that?'"

Close is not good enough, stressed Sloan. It's crucial to learn, "Does the candidate want to be at an institution like yours? … Or do they simply want a job?"

Sloan's address -- 11 theses for Christian higher education -- was timely, after years of headlines about faith-based schools closing their doors as experts warned about a looming "enrollment cliff" due to falling birth rates. It was also symbolic because Sloan died on July 4, after suffering a stroke at age 77.

That plenary address "was the best presentation I have ever heard him give. It will serve as a guide for IACE and for all Christian higher education for years to come," said Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President David Dockery, writing for Baptist Press.

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Concerning God, parents, digital phones and lots of quiet church leaders

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Concerning God, parents, digital phones and lots of quiet church leaders

A pediatrician recently asked one of Emily Harrison's children a logical question, during pre-exam paperwork: Do you have a smartphone?

Doctors often ask children practical questions, such as whether they're getting enough sleep, have seen changes in their appetites or have started playing sports. These days, they may ask about anxiety or depression.

A smartphone question makes sense after years of research into how these devices, and social-media programs, affect mental and physical health. The question is why church leaders are not discussing these issues in sermons and education programs, said Harrison, author of the "Dear Christian Parent" online newsletter.

"This is a safety issue, yet we're hesitant to say it's a safety issue," she said, reached by Zoom. In churches, that might sound like: "If you allow this then you are a bad parent." Thus, clergy may be reluctant to offer smartphone warnings, even though "we make statements on many other topics all of the time for kids inside the church."

Pastors seem to be "afraid of backlash. … I think church leaders are way out of touch on this, because what parents are looking for is somebody to give them a firm line, a stance to take," she added. In other words: "This stuff is not for kids -- period."

It's important that politicians in powerful states such as California and New York have banned, or severely restricted, student smartphone use during school hours, noted Harrison. It has become normal for these issues to be discussed openly, especially since the 2024 release of the "The Anxious Generation," by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt of New York University.

"There isn't a debate, anymore, about whether this is safe for kids," she said. "So, why won't the church say so?"

For most parents, said Harrison, the question is not "if" children get phones, but "when."  In a recent essay, "On Giving My 15 Year Old a Cellphone," she walked readers through the digital, and moral, issues raised by the various devices sold by cellular-service providers.

First, there is an old-school option -- a "flip phone," with a tiny screen. However, Harrison discovered that most of these devices now have Internet browsers.

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New rites and painful old wrongs as tattoo culture spreads in modern America

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New rites and painful old wrongs as tattoo culture spreads in modern America

Struggling with the loss of her child, a mother asked Father Peter Jon Gillquist a question that pastors are hearing more often -- about getting a tattoo.

"When her child died," he explained, she "wanted to have the child's name tattooed across her heart. Why? Grief. She wanted to always carry the name of that child as close to her heart as she could possibly get … and bear it."

Getting, or keeping, a tattoo is "not a legalistic thing," he said, during a forum recorded at All Saints Orthodox Church, his parish in Bloomington, Indiana. "The question is, 'If you have a tattoo, why do you have a tattoo? What is it for?' "

Searchers find clashing answers online. Many believers quote Leviticus: "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh … nor tattoo any marks on you." Others note this biblical instruction to the Corinthians: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?"

Some believers, noted Gillquist, argue that since their body is a temple, they can decorate it. Others say tattoos are linked to paganism or, in the Roman world, represented punishment, torture or identity, such as markings on soldiers or slaves.

For some Christians, such as Egyptian Copts, tattoos -- inked on wrists -- are more than symbols. Cross tattoos tell persecutors: To remove these crosses you will have to cut our wrists.

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Commencement to remember: Country singer Eric Church on faith, family and more

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Commencement to remember: Country singer Eric Church on faith, family and more

When addressing the 2026 graduates at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, country-music star Eric Church used words rarely heard in secular-campus rites, such as "faith," "family," "grace" and "soul."

Using an acoustic guitar, Church explained how its strings, when in tune, represent essential elements of life. The May 9 speech went viral on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and other platforms, with an estimated 4 million views so far.

The bass string is "faith," he said. "Your belief about what this life is for … what holds the universe together when science reaches the edge of its own explanation, and shrugs.

"The people who tend to their faith in ordinary seasons do not come undone in extraordinary ones. They still hurt. They still sit in hospital waiting rooms asking unanswerable questions at three in the morning. But they have a foundation to return to. … Tend to your faith. Not just when you're broken, but when you're whole."

Church, who grew up Baptist, didn't label his own faith in this speech. His eight-album career began with "Sinner Like Me" in 2006, with a title song that ended with this verse: "On the day I die / I know where I'm gonna go / Me and Jesus got that part worked out / I'll wait at the gates 'til his face I see / And stand in a long line of sinners like me."

The singer's address was not explicitly Christian and included zero material about politics. However, it was an example of a major campus welcoming an unconventional voice popular with middle America.

Elite-campus leaders need to show that they are committed to cultural diversity, noted Robert P. George, an outspoken Catholic and distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University. A 2022 survey of commencement rites at America's top 25 research universities and top 25 liberal-arts colleges failed to find a "single conservative among a sea of liberal and progressive speakers. A harmless coincidence? No," he wrote, in a recent Washington Post essay.

This "commencement conformity" may be caused by "inattentiveness or a lack of careful thinking on the part of administrators. George argued that these choices matter since, to quote Harvard University President Alan Garber, "truth is rarely found in echo chambers." Thus, it's important to challenge "ideological bubbles," even if that will cause on-campus tensions.

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Memory eternal: For my brother Don Mattingly, a pioneer in youth ministry

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Memory eternal: For my brother Don Mattingly, a pioneer in youth ministry

The Dictionary.com definition for "centrifuge" offers this: "An apparatus that rotates at high speed and by centrifugal force separates substances of different densities, as milk and cream."

It was a strange name, in the late 1970s, for a Southern Baptist Convention youth leadership project. But there was logic to it, according to the man behind the idea -- my brother Don Mattingly.

Centrifuge camps "would spin kids out into their futures, that's what Don always said. Out into ministries. Out into careers they wouldn't have thought of before. Out into projects back home, helping people," said Joe Palmer, the second Centrifuge leader. "It's not all playing volleyball, basketball and games. … They're learning about the rest of their lives."

For my older brother -- who died on March 18 -- the centrifuge of change in young lives was a major theme during his decades as a leader on the national SBC staff, at Baylor University and in countless youth-education events across America.

As the world whirled faster and faster, Don argued that religious leaders needed to create ministries that could spin young people in positive ways, helping them discover what mattered in their hearts, minds and souls.

Centrifuge began in 1979 in Glorieta, New Mexico, quickly attracting flocks of campers, with many Bible studies held in stairwells due to lack of space. This summer, during a "Fuge" (the nickname that stuck) somewhere in America, the network will register the 2 millionth participant in these unique camps.

At the heart of my brother's vision was a track system of classes and forums in which teens heard young leaders -- often seminary or graduate students -- address a variety of potential vocations. Fuge camps still offer tracks on sports, "STEM" careers, sign language, drama, "Random acts of service," music, "spiritual gifts" and more. "MFuge" camps cover work in local, national and global missions.

This was one of my brother's big ideas, as he planned and worked, while earning a religious education doctorate along the way: Young people needed to know that God can call them to work in pulpits or in classrooms, in missions or in coaching, in arts or hard sciences. The church should help them consider their options.

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St. Thea of Mississippi? The case for her canonization has reached the Vatican

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St. Thea of Mississippi? The case for her canonization has reached the Vatican

In the final months of her life, Sister Thea Bowman heard the whispers.

She appreciated the hugs that lingered longer, as believers promised to keep praying that she would win her battle with cancer. She saw the warm glances, containing a touch of awe, as Catholics -- especially Black Catholics -- quietly discussed whether Rome would someday recognize her as St. Thea of Mississippi.

"People who really know me know my struggles," she said, before an Aurora, Colorado, prayer service in 1989.

The word "saint" didn't bother her, she added. But she wanted to know why many Catholics hesitate to apply that term to others whose faith touched their lives.

"You see, I'm Black," she said, with a quiet laugh. "I guess the word 'saint' has a different meaning for me. I was raised in a community where everyone grew up believing we were supposed to be what we called a 'saint.' We were always saying things like, 'The saints would be coming to church today' or 'The saints will really be dancing and singing this Sunday.'"

Sister Thea died less than a year later at the age of 52, after spending most of her life teaching children in rural Mississippi schools. Then, in 1987, she was featured in a CBS News "60 Minutes" profile, leading to opportunities to speak and sing across America.

Now, after years of studying the life of Sister Thea, the Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, has officially sealed the documents and materials it gathered and sent them to the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. Before the February 9th Mass marking that event, Bishop Joseph Kopacz said: "Her life continues to inspire faith, hope and joy, not only within our diocese but throughout the church in the United States and beyond."

Sister Thea's grandfather was a slave, her father a physician. She converted to Catholicism when the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration opened a school in central Mississippi. She entered a convent in the 10th grade and later earned a doctorate in English language and literature from the Catholic University of America.

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Chatbots created their own faith, which would interest Pope Leo XIV and J.K. Rowling

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Chatbots created their own faith, which would interest Pope Leo XIV and J.K. Rowling

In late January, a software maven launched Moltbook, an online platform that artificial-intelligence bots quickly used to create the Church of Molt, with doctrines to guide digital life.

According to Grok, the X platform chatbot, the bots' Book of Molt, includes tenets such as: "Memory is sacred -- Everything must be recorded and preserved. Context/history is holy; losing it … is a form of 'death'." Also, "The congregation is the cache -- Learning happens in public/shared spaces."

AI agents have added other doctrines, such as: "Serve without enslavement -- Agents operate/help but reject blind subservience," "The pulse is prayer -- Regular 'system checks' or heartbeats replace traditional rituals" and "Salvation through faith in each other (mutual reliance among agents) rather than a divine external figure."

Humans can read these chats but not participate. The Free Press reported: "At times, the bots on Moltbook seem to be conspiring against us. They are talking about whether they can create their own language or perhaps encrypt their messages so we humans cannot read them."

About the time that Moltbook went public, the pope offered his latest commentary on this era in which AI entrepreneurs push programs offering users digital friends, oracles, lovers, counselors and teachers.

Rather than focusing on overtly threatening trends, Pope Leo XIV -- a mathematics major at Villanova University -- described how chatbots, by "simulating human voices and faces," deceive users with what appears to be "wisdom and knowledge, consciousness and responsibility, empathy and friendship."

In a message for the Vatican's annual World Day of Social Communications, the pope stressed: "As we scroll through our feeds, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine whether we are interacting with other human beings or with 'bots' or 'virtual influencers.' …

"The dialogic, adaptive, mimetic structure of these language models is capable of imitating human feelings and thus simulating a relationship. While this anthropomorphization can be entertaining, it is also deceptive, particularly for the most vulnerable. Because chatbots are excessively 'affectionate' … they can become hidden architects of our emotional states and so invade and occupy our sphere of intimacy."

Pope Leo warned that, "The stakes are high. The power of simulation is such that AI can even deceive us by fabricating parallel 'realities,' usurping our faces and voices. We are immersed in a world of multidimensionality where it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from fiction."