Can a young person today find peace amidst the noise, or does the intelligence of faith remain the great rebellion against monolithic thinking?

At first glance, Nicolás Álvarez de las Asturias ‘s biography seemed to fit the path of success promoted by the world: a young man from Madrid, from a well-to-do family, with a degree in business and law on the horizon, a bright professional future, and the dream of raising a large family. However, at sixteen, a spiritual retreat disrupted his plans. What many today would call madness or a pointless renunciation, he experienced with the naturalness of someone who understands what is essential: “I felt I had to say yes, because otherwise, I wasn’t going to find peace . “

Today, a priest, a doctor of canon law, and rector of the San Dámaso Ecclesiastical University (UESD) , Álvarez de las Asturias has established himself as one of the most insightful educators on the intellectual landscape of the Church in Spain. In a recent and profound conversation on the Rebeldes Podcast with Father Ignacio and Brother Marcos, the rector explored the major dilemmas facing contemporary youth, the false dichotomy between faith and science, and the urgent need to reclaim the humanities in the face of the dizzying pace of technocracy and superficiality.

The dangers of hyperprivatization and youth burnout

For the Madrid priest, the current societal assessment of the younger generations casts a clear shadow of weariness. Young people today have it much harder than past generations, trapped in a spiral of extracurricular hyperactivity obsessively focused on performance. “You arrive at university completely exhausted because you’re worn out from everything you’ve been made to do ,” he warns.

This burnout often leads to frustration and pushes young people toward the easiest shortcut: superficiality and the law of least effort. Faced with this cycle of purely material success, the Christian approach doesn’t shy away from commitment, but rather invites two foundational experiences that modern pedagogy often overlooks: acceptance of one’s own reality and forgiveness . It involves knowing what things cannot be changed (one’s physical or familial starting point) and where God’s grace and healing power truly act (the inner transformation in one’s relationship with others and with the Creator).

Faith or science? The false dilemma of scientism

One of the recurring questions that secularists pose to believers is how to uphold the existence of God in the face of scientific advancements. Álvarez de las Asturias settles the debate with surgical clarity: framing the two disciplines as rivals stems from a methodological error. While science investigates how physical phenomena occur, faith and theology answer the why and the ultimate meaning of existence.

“If I use the Bible to explain how the human body works, I make a fool of myself; but if I use science to explain the meaning of life and how to find happiness, I make just as much of a fool of myself,” he emphasizes. The current error lies not in science—which Catholics should encourage and cultivate rigorously—but in scientism : the dogmatic reductionism that seeks to confine all verifiable truth solely to what can be measured in a test tube, forgetting that the deepest realities of humanity (love, self-giving, suffering, or hope) elude the empirical method but urgently demand a response from reason.

The university as a trench of truth

In a time when the university has risked becoming a mere academy of trades focused exclusively on economic profitability, reclaiming the humanities is a matter of cultural survival. Quoting Pope Leo XIII, the rector reminds us that “only those who reflect on their roots in the present are in a position to illuminate the future . ”

The intellectual tradition of the Catholic Church, far from fearing critical thinking, offers a twofold approach—that of enlightened natural reason and that of supernatural faith—so that humanity does not renounce asking the big questions. Faced with the cacophony of voices and the enslavement to screens, the witness of believers continues to be, in the words of Saint Peter, a constant call to give a reasoned account of one’s hope. A silent, profound, and deeply joyful rebellion that demonstrates that life is not absurd, but a vocation open to eternity.