(OSV News) ─ Modern cultural influences, including technology and shifting views on identity, risk weakening human relationships and spiritual development, said Cardinal Arthur Roche, the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
In a wide-ranging interview with OSV News at his office at the Vatican March 17, Cardinal Roche said that while there is a growing interest in faith among young people, especially young men, there are also cultural aspects that undermine human relationships and spiritual development, particularly the role of technology.
"I always used to say as a bishop ─ and I'm convinced of it ─ that children have an immense capacity for contemplation," he said. "And when you substitute the liturgy of the Church for entertainment, you're taking away, you're actually poisoning, the contemplative capacity within a child to grow."
The cardinal recalled going to a restaurant with friends when he noticed a young couple with a little girl, all of them using their phones.
"The father was constantly talking to people; the wife was watching a series, without a doubt; and the girl was playing" a game, he said. "Not one of them were on the same level, either of entertainment or conversation. And I thought to myself, 'I wonder how long that's going to last.'"
"It's clear that the only words they spoke were 'spaghetti carbonara' and 'pizza.' That was it," he added.
Distorted views of human identity
Cardinal Roche also addressed broader debates about identity and human anthropology, and cautioned against what he described as distorted understandings of masculinity and gender emerging in contemporary culture.
"I think one of the things which is very interesting to me is the whole gender debate, which is the fruit of feminism: the whole dismantling of the difference between the masculine and the feminine," he said. "It's suddenly come back to bite the feminist movement; it's almost as if the feminist movement is eating itself, destroying itself by its own trajectory."
"I think those trajectories of exaggerated masculinity or femininity are always very dangerous because they lack the social element which we were made to be together as complementary partners in life," Cardinal Roche told OSV News.
Extending his concern about the loss of social complementarity, Cardinal Roche said these trends are also reflected in how society addresses questions of identity, particularly in decisions affecting children.
"Thank God that there are now doctors saying, 'I will not give your child hormones to change their sexuality or to try and change it with surgery,'" he said. "To mutilate a child is as serious to me as pedophilia; it's the same sort of thing."
"It takes away the child's freedom; it ultimately controls the child in such a way," he said. "When a boy is playing with a doll, it doesn't mean that the child is a girl. Children are not sexual in that way, so it doesn't have the same import. But then, to read that as being an indication that the child really is in the wrong body, what is that? What is that?"
As a response, Cardinal Roche pointed to the theology of the body developed by St. John Paul II as a key resource.
"It's all there," he said, describing it as a "deposit of the faith."
The pontificate of Pope Leo XIV and the pursuit of peace
Reflecting on the papacy of Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Roche told OSV News that the pope, now approaching his one-year anniversary as pontiff, made his mission very clear from the start.
"The very first words that he uttered -- 'Peace be with you' -- I think that's his primary goal," the cardinal said. "And part of that peace would be building bridges, or 'pontifex.'"
Cardinal Roche described Pope Leo as a leader marked by continuity with his predecessors but also by personal courage, particularly in the face of rising global tensions.
While noting that the pope's teaching will emerge over time, Cardinal Roche said the current geopolitical climate is a defining moment.
"His courage now in the face of a possible threat -- terrible threat to worldwide war -- you see that he's a man of courage," the cardinal said.
He added that such leadership is rooted in the pope's past, recalling how, as a young priest in Peru, he protected seminarians from being forcibly recruited by armed groups.
"He's pretty well formed; he's grounded," Cardinal Roche said, noting the pope's experience as a missionary bishop and leader of the Augustinian order.
Yet, in a world facing the threat of conflict, he underscored the Church's role as a spiritual force for peace.
"The Eucharist is the source of everything we do; it's the summit to which also we return," Cardinal Roche said, noting that in the time of ancient Rome, the "signature" of early Christians was, "Look how they love each other."
"That was extraordinary," the cardinal told OSV News. "No backbiting; there was no competition. They faced things within the context of … not an isolated 'This is how I want to do it,' but within the community. This is how we live. This is how we support each other. This is how we correct each other," he explained.
Regarding the Church's role in promoting peace, Cardinal Roche emphasized that its mission is grounded in the Eucharist and lived Christian witness rather than political power.
The Catholic Church's diplomacy, he added, is rooted in openness and encounter, noting that the pope receives all leaders because "his job is to preach Christ."
Rather than seeking dominance, Cardinal Roche told OSV News that the Church acts as a quiet force for transformation.
"We've never been described as the majority," he said. "Just the leaven in the dough."
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Junno Arocho Esteves is an international correspondent for OSV News. Follow him on X @jae_journalist.
