{"id":27449,"date":"2025-12-02T18:39:57","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T02:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/?p=27449"},"modified":"2025-12-02T19:24:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T03:24:58","slug":"it-felt-like-history-teens-organizers-on-cloud-nine-after-live-dialogue-with-pope-leo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/2025\/12\/02\/it-felt-like-history-teens-organizers-on-cloud-nine-after-live-dialogue-with-pope-leo\/","title":{"rendered":"“It Felt Like History:” Teens, Organizers on Cloud Nine after Live Dialogue with Pope Leo"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0\u00a0Jonah McKeown<\/a>,<\/em> Staff Reporter, Catholic News Agency<\/em> –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Indianapolis, Indiana)<\/strong> – At a press conference Friday following Pope Leo XIV\u2019s historic \u201cdigital visit\u201d<\/a> with 16,000 young people at the National Catholic Youth Conference<\/a> in Indianapolis, leaders and young participants praised Pope Leo\u2019s warmth, humility, authenticity, and pastoral clarity, highlighting his central message: a personal relationship with Jesus is essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWalking up on that stage felt like history. It really did,\u201d said Elise Wing, a high school senior from Waterloo, Iowa, and one of the teens selected to ask Pope Leo a question during the live dialogue, which was facilitated digitally by EWTN on Nov. 21. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful to see somebody so holy really coming to us like that, like Jesus would \u2014 like Jesus does,\u201d Wing said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause in the end \u2026 we\u2019re not excited because we got to talk to the pope. We\u2019re excited because this is Jesus working through the Church, working through the pope in this conversation. I just think that knowing that, and feeling that it wasn\u2019t just about us in that moment, makes this experience all the more incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining the young people on the press conference stage were Archbishop Nelson J. P\u00e9rez of Philadelphia, episcopal adviser to the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM); Archbishop Charles C. Thompson of Indianapolis; Montse Alvarado, president and chief operating officer of EWTN News; Christina Lamas, executive director of NFCYM; and Katie Prejean McGrady, an author, radio host, and moderator for the dialogue with the pope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ezequiel Ponce, a senior from Downey, California, said his heart was thumping as he approached the microphone, but the extensive preparation that the teens had received before the dialogue gave him confidence.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was really able to live in a moment. I felt at ease. When I was talking to the pope, I felt like I was talking to my dad or someone close to me. It felt personal because he addressed us. He said my name. He said it right,\u201d Ponce said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the dialogue, five teens from around the country<\/a> asked Pope Leo probing questions about mental health, artificial intelligence (AI), and the future of the Catholic Church, while tens of thousands of their peers in the stadium and at least 50,000 people online watched live. The dialogue was also picked up by several major secular news outlets globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to help the Church prepare for the future, the pope told the young attendees, start by \u201cbeing involved today\u201d \u2014 stay connected to your parish, attend Sunday Mass, join youth activities, and say yes to faith-nurturing opportunities, the pontiff advised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will accept Pope Leo\u2019s challenge of really being involved in the Church,\u201d Ponce commented. \u201cHe talked about finding people that you can really trust \u2026 that not only will listen to you, but help guide you with your faith in the Lord, push you to ask questions and push you to better your understanding and be there for you truly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wing expressed amazement that the pope addressed the teens by name and engaged directly with their questions during the face-to-face call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pope just kept bringing it back to the Lord. That\u2019s why we\u2019re here. That\u2019s why all of us are doing what we\u2019re doing,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJesus is what we\u2019re longing for. And I think that that is the message that was really conveyed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ponce, who is involved in a Catholic summer camp back home in California, said it was \u201csuper refreshing\u201d to hear Pope Leo vocalize a sentiment that Ponce\u2019s youth leader has also told him: that young people aren\u2019t merely the future of the Church, they are also \u201cthe present.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Used with permission.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0\u00a0Jonah McKeown, Staff Reporter, Catholic News Agency – (Indianapolis, Indiana) – At a press conference Friday following Pope Leo XIV\u2019s historic \u201cdigital visit\u201d with 16,000 young people at the National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis, leaders and young participants praised Pope Leo\u2019s warmth, humility, authenticity, and pastoral clarity, highlighting his central message: a personal relationship with Jesus is essential. \u201cWalking up on that stage felt like history. It … Continuar leyendo “It Felt Like History:” Teens, Organizers on Cloud Nine after Live Dialogue with Pope Leo<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":10336596,"featured_media":27523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20310044,782003440],"tags":[35890],"class_list":["post-27449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-province-news","category-youth-ministry","tag-featured"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p59ePG-78J","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/salesianbulletin.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/presser-1.nov_.21.2025-1.jpeg-1.jpeg?fit=670%2C447&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10336596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27449"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27526,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27449\/revisions\/27526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}