“Make a Mess”: Pope Francis’s 2015 Speech to Paraguay’s Youth

Pope Francis Urges Paraguay’s Youth to “Make a Mess” (2015)

On Sunday 12 July 2015, on the last evening of his tour of South America, Pope Francis stood before a huge crowd of young people on the Costanera, the riverside promenade along the Paraguay River in Asunción, and put his prepared text aside. Instead he urged them to shake things up: in the Vatican’s English translation, So make a ruckus! But also help in cleaning it up. English-language media widely rendered the phrase as “make a mess”, and it quickly became the headline of the trip.

Some outlets, including Common Dreams, framed the moment as a call for young people to rise up against global capitalism. That reading drew on fiery economic speeches he had given earlier the same week in Bolivia. The youth address itself was more personal: a talk about freedom, solidarity and hope, built around the stories of two young Paraguayans. Here is what he actually said, the context that made it newsworthy, and why it still resonates.

The setting: a week-long tour of Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay

Francis, the first pope from Latin America, began the journey in Quito, Ecuador, on 5 July 2015, moved on to La Paz and Santa Cruz in Bolivia, and arrived in Paraguay on 10 July. The meeting with young people on 12 July was one of his final public events before he flew back to Rome that night.

Earlier that day he had visited Bañado Norte, a poor neighbourhood on the low-lying riverbank of Asunción whose residents live with repeated flooding and insecure housing. Speaking in a small chapel there, he told residents that a faith which does not lead people to care for one another is empty, and he urged neighbours to stay united rather than let hardship divide them. That visit framed what he would say to the young people a few hours later.

A video of the youth meeting was posted online at the time, and you can watch the address on YouTube.

What he told the young people

Francis explained that he had written a speech but would not read it, because reading a prepared text aloud would be boring; he handed it to the bishop responsible for youth so it could be published instead. Then he responded directly to testimonies given on stage.

The first came from Liz, a 25-year-old who had cared for her mother through a cruel illness, and for her grandmother too, while continuing her studies and eventually becoming a nurse. Francis said she had become a mother to her own mother, and held her up as an example of solidarity, which he described as taking an interest in other people’s problems and called the highest form of love.

The second came from Manuel, who described exploitation, mistreatment, loneliness and the risk of addiction. Rather than turning to crime, he found work and, as he put it, came to know God as his strength. Francis used his story to talk about a “free heart”: one not chained to exploitation, addictions or a false freedom of simply doing whatever we like. He led the crowd in a short prayer asking for that kind of heart.

Then came the line everyone remembered. He told the young people to make noise and stir things up, but to help tidy up afterwards and to organise their energy so that nothing gets broken. He added that he did not want young people who are lukewarm, worn out and bored, unable to say a clear yes or no; the Vatican translation uses the word namby-pambies. He wanted them strong and full of hope.

Why it was read as a challenge to global capitalism

The “rise up” headlines came from the wider tour. On 9 July in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, Francis addressed the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements, a gathering of grassroots organisations of workers, farmers and residents of informal settlements. There he condemned an economy that puts profit above people, described the unfettered pursuit of money with a phrase he credited to the fourth-century theologian Basil of Caesarea, the dung of the devil, and spoke of a subtle dictatorship of economic interests. He called for land, lodging and labour for all, and he asked forgiveness for the Church’s offences and for crimes committed against the native peoples of the Americas in the name of God.

The New York Times headlined its report on those addresses as Francis excoriating global capitalism in fiery speeches. Read against that background, a pope telling young people to make a mess sounded to many commentators like an invitation to activism.

It also came only weeks after his encyclical Laudato si’, signed on 24 May and released on 18 June 2015. Subtitled “on care for our common home”, it treated climate change, environmental damage and poverty as a single crisis, criticised consumerism and a profit-driven “technocratic paradigm”, and argued that rich countries owe a debt to poorer ones.

Reading the speech carefully: a few corrections

Viral versions of this story blurred some details, so it is worth setting them straight.

He did not use the words “global capitalism” in the youth speech. The economic critique belongs to the Bolivia address three days earlier. The Paraguay talk was about personal freedom, solidarity and hope.
Translations differ. “Make a mess” and “make a ruckus” are two English renderings of the same Spanish expression. Some reports also quoted him as saying he did not want “young weaklings”; the Vatican’s published translation uses “namby-pambies”, describing young people who are lukewarm and bored.
“Tidy it up” was part of the message. He did not call for chaos. The point was energetic, organised commitment that leaves things better, not broken.

What the message means today

Strip away the headlines and the speech offers advice that works far beyond Paraguay or the Catholic Church. Notice the people around you who are struggling, as Liz did for her family. Refuse the kinds of “freedom” that actually trap you, from addictions to exploitative work. Be willing to disrupt complacency, and then stay to do the hard, unglamorous work of rebuilding. It is a call to active citizenship rather than to any single ideology.

For young people facing unemployment, climate anxiety or a sense that nothing changes, the core idea is encouraging: their energy matters, and it is most powerful when it is joined to care for others.

Pope Francis’s later years

Francis continued to return to these themes, from migration and the environment to the dignity of work, throughout his pontificate. He died at his residence, the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican, on 21 April 2025, Easter Monday, at the age of 88. The July 2015 evening on the banks of the Paraguay River remains one of the moments most often quoted when people remember his style: informal, direct, and impatient with indifference.

Sources: Vatican: Meeting with young people at the Costanera, Asunción, 12 July 2015; Vatican: Visit to Bañado Norte, 12 July 2015; Vatican: Address to the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements, 9 July 2015; EWTN News: Pope Francis off the cuff to young people; Wikipedia: Laudato si’; original report by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams via True Activist; Vatican News, 21 April 2025: Pope Francis dies on Easter Monday aged 88.

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