It is not enough to have geniuses who know how to calculate the route to Mars or decipher extinct languages if we do not have men and women who know what charity, honor, and the fear of God are.
Newsroom (03/18/2026 11:48, Gaudium Press) – Observing the repetitive theater of human afflictions, I confess that it causes me a certain sadness to see so many people placing their hopes in the naïve illusion that the salvation of tomorrow will come packaged in fiber-optic cables or in the lines of code of an Artificial Intelligence. They forget, however, that for the world to survive and become a truly healthy environment, the one who needs to change is the human being himself.
Fortunately, the great and silent truth is that Divine Providence, whose wisdom is above all things, has long been preparing the ground and has already begun to send the seeds of that new world.
The builders of tomorrow are already among us
They keep arriving, wearing children’s shoes and playing with balls and dolls, but carrying specific endowments and intellects that challenge our understanding. I refer to children with high abilities and giftedness, whose minds boil with intense metabolic activity, processing reality at a speed that leaves us astonished.
Clinical myopia
However, what does our modern society—so proud of its “science”—do in the face of these little prodigies? It becomes afraid. It tries to frame them, medicate them, and label them at any cost. Instead of cultivating these abilities, our clinical gaze often slips into myopia, confusing genius with disorder and risking being carried away by hasty diagnoses that seem to follow a generalized trend of fitting everything into autism spectrum disorder.
Fortunately, there are sensitive parents and professionals; some of these children manage to be seen for what they truly are: something we do not fully understand and that reflects a specific glory of our Creator. Let us look at the case of a remarkable little boy from the interior of São Paulo, Brazil.
At only three years of age—an age when the greatest achievement is usually leaving diapers—this child already plays with the Greek and Russian alphabets, masters seven languages, and has an impressive IQ of 132, which earned him a place in the renown international society Mensa.
However, this child was evaluated for autism until the obviousness of his giftedness became clear.
Attentive mothers
In the midst of this storm of genius, the most authentic reaction came from his mother, who strives to remind the child and the rest of the family that he is just as much a child as the others, that he loves to play in the park and passionately follows a soccer team.
That same childhood—sometimes forgotten by us adults—resists bravely in Ceará, in the north eastern part of Brazil, where a boy of only 12 years old saw his name appear on the list of those admitted to a university entrance exam for Mathematics at a state university. His mind flies so fast through equations that his parents face an almost comical challenge: they must impose limits and remind him daily to stop studying and enjoy the leisure typical of his age.
Similarly, we know stories like that of young Enzinho, also 12 years old, who already immerses himself in university preparatory books with firm determination to study Medicine.
The pedagogical challenge
As we can see, this genius is not limited to numbers or languages. Aesthetic sensitivity also flourishes in a surprising and early way. There are children with musical talents who, even before the age of six, already possess a deep appreciation for tones, refined rhythmic perception, and the ability to spend long periods in total hyperfocus, dedicating themselves solely to composing and manipulating sounds. Likewise, there are those who draw and paint with a high degree of refinement and creativity.
But the sad reality is that our educational institutions do not know what to do with these—today small—virtuosos of tomorrow. Schools, which should be seedbeds of knowledge, have become standardized assembly lines, revealing a painful lack of preparation. Parents suffer, going from school to school, watching their children become mentally ill in environments that simply cannot embrace their greatness, generating immense suffering and maladaptation.
The moral compass and the heart of the matter
However, the problem is much deeper. If the educational system is an obvious barrier, the great knot of our time lies precisely with parents and educators. Intelligence is like a sword forged in the purest steel: it will cut relentlessly everything placed before it in its attempt to dissect meaning.
If these brilliant minds do not receive solid moral and spiritual formation, they risk becoming lost. Genius without virtue is a fast ship adrift in a stormy sea. If families are not a safe harbor—offering affection and limits, and teaching values from above—these children may easily lose themselves in the labyrinths of their own minds.
Without the non-negotiable north of morality and faith, they run the risk of wasting their rare abilities or, worse still, using them selfishly and improperly, serving vanity and succumbing to the temptations of a world already quite sick.
It is not enough to have geniuses who can calculate routes to Mars or decipher extinct languages if we do not have men and women who understand charity, honor, and the fear of God.
As we well know, a society that idolizes pure intellect but despises the uprightness of the soul paves its own collapse. The danger has never been in the silicon of machines, but in the soul of the one who opens the door to them.
Therefore, let us have the humility to learn from these architects of tomorrow, taking care not to crush them with our mediocre molds. Let us give them the academic tools they so greatly need, but never forget to nourish their spirit with the solidity of family life and faith in God.
After all, to save this old and weary world of ours, it will not be enough merely to think faster; above all, it will be necessary to know how to love and discern good from evil. And that is a lesson that no algorithm, no matter how advanced, will ever be able to teach them.
By Alfonso Pessoa
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
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