"When you become a slave to your phone, you lose your freedom," Pope Francis said.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, England, has made an urgent appeal to the young people of his country to abandon gangs, gang violence and the use of knives. "Knife crime" is at its highest since records started being kept since 1946 and Catholic clergy in Britain are focusing on how to divert youth from such destructive social behavior.

For high school seniors, existential angst about what schools they will get into, how much aid they will receive and how much debt they will need to take on to get a degree has become a national rite of passage.

Pope Francis speaks to the ‘now’ of God with his new letter to youth.

This dark moment, he writes, with the help of young people “can truly be an opportunity for a reform of epoch-making significance, opening us to a new Pentecost and inaugurating a new stage of purification and change capable of renewing the Church’s youth.

“Young people who are seeking or questioning their future can find Mary to be the one who helps them discern God’s plan for them and find the strength to follow it.”