Message of Pope Leo xiv for the international day of mathematics
(signed by the cardinal secretary of state, Pietro Parolin)
(14 March 2026)
“Education is one of the most beautiful and powerful tools for changing the world”
Pope Leo’s Message:
Dear Professor Betül Tanbay, Chair of the International Day of Mathematics
Pope Leo XIV was pleased to receive your thoughtful letter informing him of the International Day of Mathematics webinar to take place on 13 March 2026. He is grateful for the gracious sentiments you expressed, and he sends cordial good wishes to all taking part.
As the participants reflected on the theme “Mathematics and Hope” in the context of the manifold challenges facing the human family, not least the rapid technological development with all its potential for good or evil, Pope Francis encouraged them to consider how mathematicians can be hopeful signs to the wider world.
In this regard, an especially fruitful area of research is the use of algorithms, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence.
Such a task requires not just intellectual effort and ingenuity but also an integral growth of the whole person, in order to encompass the moral dimension of these emerging technologies.
Indeed Pope Leo XIV, recalled his own time as a teacher of mathematics and physics, when he addressed the students gathered for the Jubilee of the World of Education: “Having a great deal of knowledge is not enough if we do not know who we are or what the meaning of life is”
(see footnote below for full address Address 30, October 2025).
Therefore, he prays that everyone involved in the event will pay attention to the profound spiritual needs of the human heart.
Pope Leo hopes they will find ways to humanize the digital sphere and use it as an opportunity for fraternity and creativity. He hopes they will be prophets of hope, truth, and goodness in the world.
Upon those participating in this year’s International Day, the Holy Father invokes abundant divine blessings of wisdom, joy and peace.
Footnote: Pope Leo’s address to students gathered for Jubilee of the World of Education: October 30, 2025
Dear young people,
Being with you today reminds me of the years I spent teaching mathematics to lively young people like you. Thank you for accepting the invitation to join us today and share your thoughts and aspirations, which I will share with our friends around the world.
I would like to begin by recalling Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian student who, as you know, was canonized during this Jubilee Year. With his passionate love for God and neighbor, this young saint coined two phrases that he often repeated, almost like a motto: “To live without faith … is not living but simply getting along” and (motto) “To the heights.” These are very true and encouraging words.
So I say to you as well: have the courage to live life to the fullest.
Don’t settle for appearances or fads. A life stifled by fleeting pleasures will never satisfy us.
Instead, say in your heart: “I dream of more, Lord. I long for something greater. Lord, inspire me!”!”
This desire is your strength and expresses the commitment of young people who envision a better society and refuse to be mere spectators.
Therefore, I encourage you to keep striving “toward the heights,” lighting the beacon of hope in dark times.
How wonderful it would be if your generation were one day remembered as the “Generation Plus,” remembered for the extra drive you brought to the Church and the world.
Dear young people,
This cannot remain the dream of one person alone.
Let us come together and make it happen, sharing the joy of believing in Jesus Christ.
How can we achieve this? The answer is simple: education.
It is one of the most beautiful and powerful tools for changing the world.
Five years ago, Pope Francis launched the Global Compact on Education project, an alliance of individuals and organizations working in education and culture to promote universal fraternity among younger generations.
You are not just recipients of education; you are its protagonists.
That is why I am asking you today to join forces and open a new era of education. In this era, all of us—young and old—will be credible witnesses of truth and peace.
You are called to be truth-speakers and peacemakers—people who stand by their word and build peace.
Involve your peers in the search for truth and the cultivation of peace. Express these two passions through your lives, words, and daily actions.
In this regard, I would like to add to the reflections of St. John Henry Newman, a scholarly saint.
He said that knowledge grows when it is shared, the flame of truth is kindled through the conversation of minds.
Similarly, true peace is born when many lives come together, like stars to form a pattern.
Together, we can create educational constellations that guide the path forward.
As a former mathematics and physics teacher, I would like to do some calculations with you.
Perhaps you will take a test in mathematics shortly. We will see.
Do you know how many stars are in the observable universe?
It’s an impressive and wonderful number: a sextillion stars—that is, a one followed by 21 zeros.
If we divided them among Earth’s 8 billion people, each person would have hundreds of billions of stars.
With the naked eye we can see about five thousand stars, on clear nights,
Although there are billions of stars, we only see the closest constellations.
Yet, these are enough to help us navigate, as when we are at sea..
Travelers have always used the stars to find their way.
Sailors followed the North Star and Polynesians crossed the ocean by memorizing star maps.
As a missionary in Peru, I met farmers in the Andes who said the sky is an open book that marks the seasons of sowing, shearing, and the cycles of life.
The Magi even followed a star to reach Bethlehem and worship the Baby Jesus.
Like them, you have guiding stars too: parents, teachers, priests and good friends.
They are like compasses that help you find your way through life’s ups and downs.
Like them, you are called to be shining examples for those around you.
However, as I said, a single star remains just a point of light on its own.
However, when it joins with others, it forms a constellation, such as the Southern Cross.
It is the same with you. Each of you is a star, and together you are called to guide the future.
Education brings people together into lively communities and organizes ideas into constellations of meaning.
As the prophet Daniel writes, “Those who lead many to righteousness shall shine like the stars forever” (Daniel 12:3). How wonderful!
We are indeed stars because we are sparks of God. Educating means cultivating this gift.
In fact, education teaches us to look upward, always higher.
When Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope at the sky, he discovered new worlds: such as the moons of Jupiter and the mountains of the Moon.
Education is like a telescope, allowing you to see beyond what you would see on your own.
So, instead of being fixated on smartphones and their fleeting images, look to the sky and the heights.
Dear young people,
You yourselves proposed the first of the new challenges that call for our commitment in the Global Compact on Education, expressing a strong and clear desire.
You said: “Help us in our education of the interior life.”
I have been deeply moved by your request.
Having a great deal of knowledge is not enough if we do not know who we are or what the meaning of life is.
Without silence, without listening, without prayer, even the light of the stars fades.
We can learn a great deal about the world but still ignore our own hearts.
You too may have experienced the feeling of emptiness or restlessness that does not leave you in peace. In the most serious cases, we see episodes of distress, violence, bullying and oppression.
We see young people who isolate themselves and no longer want to interact with others.
I believe this suffering is also caused by a society that has forgotten how to develop the spiritual dimension of the human person, focusing only on the technical, social, and moral aspects of life.
As a young man, St. Augustine was brilliant yet deeply unsatisfied, as we read in his autobiography, The Confessions. He searched everywhere — in success and pleasure — and tried all sorts of things, but he could not find truth or peace.
When he discovered God in his own heart, he wrote a very profound phrase that applies to all of us:
“My heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Educating ourselves for the interior life means listening to our restlessness and not fleeing from it or filling it with things that do not satisfy.
Our desire for the infinite is a compass that tells us: “Do not settle—you are made for something greater;” “Do not merely get by, but live.”
The second of the new educational challenges is a commitment that affects us every day and in which you are teachers: digital education.
You live in it, and that is not a bad thing; there are enormous opportunities for study and communication.
But do not let the algorithm write your story!
Be the authors yourselves; use technology wisely, but do not let technology use you.
Artificial intelligence is also a great novelty — one of the rerum novarum, or “new things,” of our time. However, it is not enough to be “intelligent” in virtual reality; we must also treat one another humanely, nurturing emotional, spiritual, social and ecological intelligence.
Therefore, I say to you: learn to humanize the digital, building it as a space of fraternity and creativity — not a cage where you lock yourselves in, not an addiction or an escape.
Instead of being tourists on the web, be prophets in the digital world!
In this regard, we have a very timely example of holiness: St. Carlo Acutis.
He was a young man who did not become a slave to the internet but rather used it skillfully for good. Saint Carlo combined his beautiful faith with his passion for computers, creating a website on Eucharistic miracles and thus making the internet a tool for evangelization.
His initiative teaches us that the digital world is educational when it does not close us in on ourselves but opens us to others — when it does not place us at the center but orients us toward God and others.
Dear friends, we finally come to the third great challenge that I entrust to you today — the one at the heart of the new Global Compact on Education: education for peace.
You can see how much our future is threatened by war and hatred, which divide people.
Can this future be changed? Certainly! How?
With an education for peace that is disarmed and disarming.
It is not enough, in fact, to silence weapons: we must disarm hearts, renouncing all violence & vulgarity. In this way, a disarming and disarmed education creates equality and growth for all, recognizing the equal dignity of every young person, without ever dividing young people between the privileged few who have access to expensive schools and the many who do not have access to education.
With great confidence in you, I invite you to be peacemakers first and foremost where you live — in your families, at school, in sports, and among your friends — reaching out to those who come from other cultures.
In conclusion, dear friends, do not look to shooting stars, on which fragile wishes are entrusted.
Look higher still, toward Jesus Christ, “the sun of righteousness” who will always guide you along the paths of life.
(Luke 1:76-78),
76you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn upon[a] us from on high
