At Assisi, Leo XIV calls young Franciscans to become 'new saints'

On 6 August 2026, the feast of the Transfiguration, Leo XIV celebrated Mass at the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, the Portiuncula of Assisi, for the 'GO!' gathering of Franciscan youth. He urged the young to win 'the margins' of society, 'where the injustice and arrogance of a few deny the dignity and the dreams of many,' to 'embrace Sister Poverty' and to become 'new saints.' 'Today Europe and the whole world are looking to you to be new saints,' he said; and again: 'We are here to overcome resignation and fear, to untie the doubts that hold us back as they held back the apostles.'

The Church has never made holiness depend on an impulse or a slogan. The saint is the one whom grace transfigures, who keeps the commandments and follows Christ to the Cross. 'Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect' (Mt V, 48): the call to holiness is as old as the Gospel, and Francis and Clare of Assisi did not invent it, they embraced it 'sine glossa,' without gloss, in Saint Francis's own words about his Rule.

It is by this measure that the appeal is judged. To embrace Sister Poverty is not a posture raised against 'the culture of power': it is the first of the evangelical counsels, that poverty of heart the Lord proclaims blessed. To touch the suffering flesh of the neighbour is the works of mercy that the Catechism ranks among the duties of charity. Where the appeal repeats this doctrine, it only recalls the way of the saints; where it would slip toward agitation or novelty, the Portiuncula itself corrects it, for Francis reformed nothing of the deposit there: he lived it. The number of the young gathered, moreover, varies by the count, from some two thousand five hundred to more than five thousand; but the measure of the Church is not the crowd, it is holiness.

Sources. Gospel according to Saint Matthew, V, 48 (Vulgate, Douay-Rheims); Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the works of mercy and the evangelical counsels; Dom Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, at 6 August, feast of the Transfiguration; the word of Saint Francis to observe the Gospel 'sine glossa.'