Pope: 'Virtual connection' Cannot Replace Human Relationships

Vatican City, 27 November 2025 — Pope Leo XIV has cautioned that while virtual connection and digital prayer can be useful, they can never substitute for real-life relationships, calling on believers to preserve authentic human bonds and nurture their relationship with God through prayer and community. 

At a general address, the Pope affirmed that faith lives not only in digital spaces but in shared human experience, emphasising that the Church is “a communal and historical subject of synodality,” where bonds become channels of grace through physical presence and real communal life. 

He urged believers — especially youth — to integrate the new and the old (“nova et vetera”): use technology wisely for faith-sharing, but not neglect personal prayer, Eucharist and face-to-face fellowship. While digital tools can help connect people over long distances, they must not replace “being together to speak and to listen.” 

To complement technology, Pope Leo highlighted the indispensable value of real relationships — with God and with one another — built on trust, compassion and presence, asserting that in prayer “we bear witness to who we truly are: creatures in need of everything.”

Source and Image Credits : Vatican News