TED Talks Daily - Why the only future worth building includes everyone | His Holiness Pope Francis

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that individual can be you, says His Holiness Pope Francis in this searing TED Talk delivered directly from Vatican City. In a hopeful message to people of all faiths, to those who have power as well as those who don't, the spiritual leader provides illuminating commentary on the world as we currently find it and calls for equality, solidarity and tenderness to prevail. "Let us help each other, all together, to remember that the 'other' is not a statistic, or a number," he says. "We all need each other."Delivered in Italian with English dubbing by Bruno Giussani. Originally recorded on April 25, 2017. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Today we're honoring the memory of His Holiness Pope Francis, who delivered two powerful TED talks during his papacy. Across his talks, he addressed his concern about the global climate crisis and also illustrated how all of us can work together, across faiths and societies, to protect the earth and promote the dignity of all people. The future is built today, he said, and it is not built in isolation, but rather in community and harmony.

In this classic 2017 TED Talk, Pope Francis reflects on why the only future worth building includes everyone. He calls for equality, solidarity, and tenderness in a hopeful message to people of all faiths. Here's that 2017 talk, dubbed dubbed in English from the original Italian. Good evening or good morning, I'm not sure what time it is there. Regardless of the hour, I'm thrilled to be participating in your conference. I very much like its title, The Future You, because while looking at tomorrow, it invites us to open a dialogue today, to look at the future through a you.

look at the future through a you. The future you. The future is made of you. It is made of encounters because life flows through our relations with others. Quite a few years of life have strengthened my conviction that each and everyone's existence is deeply tied to that of others. Life is not merely passing by, life is about interactions. As I meet or lend an ear to those who are sick, to the migrants who face terrible hardships in search of a brighter future, to prison inmates who carry a hell of pain inside their hearts and to those, many of them young, who cannot find a job, I often find myself wondering, why them and not me? I myself was born in a family of migrants. My father, my grandparents,

like many other Italians, left for Argentina and met the fate of those who were left with nothing. I could have very well ended up among today's discarded people, and that's why I always ask myself deep in my heart, why them and not me? First and foremost, I would love it if this conference could help to remind us that we all need each other. None of us is an island, an autonomous and independent I separated from the other,

and we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone. We don't think about it often, but everything is connected, and we need to restore our connections to a healthy state. Even the harsh judgment I hold in my heart against my brother or my sister, the open wound that was never cured, the offense that was never forgiven, the rancor that is only going to hurt me, they all are instances of a fight that I carry within me, a flare deep in my heart that needs to be extinguished before it goes up in flames, leaving only ashes behind. Many of us nowadays seem to believe that a happy future

is something impossible to achieve. And such concerns must be taken very seriously, but they are not invincible. They can be overcome if we do not lock our door to the outside world. Happiness can only be discovered as a gift of harmony between the whole and each single component. Even science, and you know it better than I do, points to an understanding of reality as a place where every element connects and interacts with everything else.

And this brings me to my second message. How wonderful would it be if the growth of scientific and technological innovation would come along with more equality and social inclusion. How wonderful would it be, while we discover faraway planets, to rediscover the needs of the brothers and sisters orbiting around us? How wonderful would it be if solidarity, this beautiful and at times inconvenient word, if solidarity were not simply reduced to social work and became instead the default attitude in political, economic and scientific choices, as well as in the relationships among individuals, peoples and countries.

Only by educating people to a true solidarity will we be able to overcome the culture of waste, which doesn't concern only food and goods, but increasingly concerns people, people who are cast aside by our techno-economic systems which, without even realizing it, are now putting products at their core instead of the people. Solidarity, a term that many wish to erase from the dictionary, solidarity is not an automatic mechanism. It cannot be programmed nor controlled. It is a free response born from the heart of each and everyone.

Yes, a free response born from the heart of each and everyone. Yes, a free response. When one realizes that life, even in the middle of so many contradictions, is a gift, that love is the source and the meaning of life, how can they suppress their urge to be good to another fellow being? In order to do good, we need memory,

we need courage, and we need creativity. And I know that Ted gathers many creative minds. Yes. Yes. Love does require a creative, concrete and ingenious attitude. Good intentions and conventional formulas, so often used to appease our conscience, are not enough. So let us help each other, all together, to remember that the other is not a statistic or a number. The other has a face. The you is always a a person to take care of. There is a parable Jesus told to help us understand the difference between those who would rather not be bothered and those who take care of the other. I'm sure you have heard of it before. It's the parable of the Good Samaritan. I'm sure you have heard of it before.

It's the parable of the Good Samaritan. When Jesus was asked, who is my neighbor? Namely, who should I take care of? He told this story. The story of a man who had been assaulted, robbed, beaten, and abandoned along a dirt road. Upon seeing him, a priest and a Levite, two very influential people at the time, walked past him without stopping to help. After a while, a Samaritan, a member of a very much despised ethnicity at the time, walked by.

And seeing the injured man lying on the ground, he did not ignore him as if he weren't even there. Instead, he felt compassion for this man, which compelled him to act in a very concrete manner. He poured oil and wine on the wounds of the helpless man, brought him to a hostel, and paid out of his pocket for him to be assisted. The story of the Good Samaritan is the story of today's humanity. People's journeys are riddled with suffering, as everything is centered around money and things instead of people. And often there is this habit by people who call themselves respectable of not taking care

of the others, thus leaving behind thousands of human beings, entire populations, on the side of the road. Fortunately, however, there are also those who are creating a new world by taking care of the others, even out of their own pockets. Mother Teresa actually said, one cannot love unless it is at their own expense. We have so much to do and we must do it together. But how can we do that with all the evil we breathe every day? Thank God no system can quash our desire to open up to the good, to compassion and to

our capacity to react against evil, all of which stem from deep within our hearts. Now you might tell me, sure, these are beautiful words, but I'm not the good Samaritan, nor Mother Teresa. On the contrary, we are precious, each and every one of us. Each and every one of us is irreplaceable in the eyes of God. is irreplaceable in the eyes of God. Through the darkness of today's conflicts, each and every one of us can become a bright candle, a reminder that light will overcome darkness and never the other way around. To Christians, the future has a name, and that name is hope. Feeling hopeful does not mean to be optimistically naive and ignore the tragedy humanity is facing. Hope is the virtue of a heart that doesn't lock itself into darkness, that doesn't dwell

on the past, that does not simply get by in the present, but is able to see a tomorrow. Hope is the door that hidden seed of life that with time will develop into a large tree. It is like some invisible yeast that allows the whole dough to grow, that brings flavor to all aspects of life. And it can do so much because a tiny flicker of light that feeds on hope is enough to shatter the shield of darkness. A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that individual can be you. And then there will be another you,

and another you, and it turns into us. And so, does hope begin when we have us? No, hope began with one you. When there is us begins a revolution. The third message I would like to share today is indeed about revolution, the revolution of tenderness. What is tenderness? It is the love that comes close and becomes real.

It is a movement that starts from our heart and reaches the eyes, the ears and the hands. Tenderness means to use our eyes to see the other, our ears to hear the other, to listen to the children, the poor, and to those who are afraid of the future. To listen also to the silent cry of our common home, our sick and polluted earth. Tenderness means to use our hands and our heart

to comfort the other, to take care of those in need. Tenderness is the language of the young children, of those who need the other. A child's love for mom and dad grows through their touch, their gaze, their voice, their tenderness. I like when I hear parents talk to their babies, adapting to the little child, sharing the same level of communication. sharing the same level of communication. That is tenderness, being on the same level as the other. God himself descended into Jesus to be on our level. This is the same path that the Good Samaritan took. This is the path that Jesus himself took.

He lowered himself, he lived his entire human existence, practicing the real concrete language of love. Yes, tenderness is the path of choice for the strongest, most courageous men and women. Tenderness is not weakness, it is fortitude. It is the path of solidarity, the path of humility. Allow me to say it loud and clear. The more powerful you are, the more your actions have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly.

If you don't, your power will ruin you and you will ruin the other. There is a saying in Argentina, power is like drinking gin on an empty stomach. You feel dizzy, you get drunk, you lose your balance. If you don't connect your power with humility and tenderness, you will end up hurting yourself and those around you. Through humility and concrete love, on the other hand, power, the highest, the strongest power, power becomes a service, a force for good. The future of humankind is not exclusively in the hands of politicians, of great leaders, of big companies.

Sure, they do hold an enormous responsibility, but the future is most of all in the hands of those who recognize the other as a you and themselves as part of us. We all need each other, so please think of me as well with tenderness, so that I can fulfill the task I have been given for the good of the other, of each and every one, of all of you, of all of us. Thank you. That was His Holiness Pope Francis speaking at TED 2017. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines.

And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo. I'm Elise Hu.

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