More quotes from Pope Francis’ apostolic journey in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore from September 2 to 13:

Real, concrete relationships

At a meeting with the authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps in Singapore, the pope said: “The sophisticated technologies of the digital age and rapid developments in the use of AI must not lead us to forget the essential need to cultivate real and concrete human relationships. These technologies should be used to bring us closer together by promoting understanding and solidarity, and never to isolate ourselves in a dangerously false and intangible reality.”

Without love we are nothing

In his homily in Singapore, he said: “Sometimes it happens that the greatness and grandeur of our projects can fool us into thinking we can be the sole authors of our lives, of our wealth, our well-being, our happiness. Yet, ultimately, life always brings us back to one reality: without love we are nothing. Faith, then, tells us that at the root of our capacity to love and be loved is God himself who,... has willed and desired to bring us into existence in an utterly gratuitous way and who, in an equally gratuitous way, has redeemed us and freed us from sin and death, through the death and resurrection of his only Son. It is in Jesus that all that we are and can become have their origin and fulfilment.”

On happiness and freedom

Addressing young people in East Timor, he said: “Do you know what makes a young person fall? Vices. Be careful, because those who are called sellers of happiness come to sell you drugs, they sell you many things that give you happiness for half an hour, nothing more. A young man who does not dream is a pensioner of life.” A young person who does not govern himself is a slave, he is not free. And what can a young person be a slave to? Sin, the mobile phone, believing oneself to be all-powerful, arrogance.”

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)