This visit to France was always going to be an interesting one, given the country’s rich Catholic history and, at the same time, its strict laïcité—the secularism baked into law and society. How would a pope navigate those two aspects of French society, particularly as more than half of the country now considers itself atheist or non-religious, yet the church in France has seen a 400 percent increase in conversions since the Covid pandemic?
Pope Leo gave his earliest answer to that question this morning, in a speech at the Palais D’Élysée. After President Emmanuel Macron’s speech, which primarily framed Catholicism as an interesting source of beautiful architecture and humanist ethics, likely aimed at pacifying critics of the papal visit who believe it to be a violation of laïcité, the pope invoked France’s canonized saints and its contributions to human rights, before turning his view to artificial intelligence and human dignity, themes he would return to throughout the day.
An open question going into this visit was whether Pope Leo would address the law approving medically assisted suicide last month; he did, head-on, in this morning’s talk: “I am concerned at times by those trends in society that risk turning science and technology into profit-driven ventures promoting genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs or the possibility of arranging one’s own death,” he said. Elsewhere in the speech, he denounced abortion, while echoing the areas of agreement between France and the Catholic Church, like nuclear disarmament and an insistence on human rights around the world.
The pope invoked the French ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, asking that the country’s liberty “grow in constant concern for the common good,” its fraternity “embrace the entire human family,” and its equality “not…eras[e] differences between people”—subtle, diplomatically delivered criticisms that did not go unnoticed by journalists or the general public.
His following talk, to a young and energized crowd at UNESCO, likewise did not shy away from challenging the international organization to remain true to its ideals while subtly challenging it: Describing the foundation of UNESCO after the Second World War, Leo recalled, “Humanity had come to realize that scientific progress, when severed from wisdom, can turn into a weapon of destruction; that culture, when subjected to ideology, can degenerate into falsehood and propaganda; and that education, when it abandons the truth, can become an instrument for manipulating consciences.” The latter point echoed some of Pope Francis’ more vocal criticisms of the United Nations and other NGOs, who he saw as imposing an “ideological colonization” by making some forms of aid contingent on accepting or supporting certain Western ideals. (A prominent example was the World Bank’s withdrawal of a loan and ultimate cessation of funding to Uganda after it passed an anti-homosexuality law in 2014.)
Leo reiterated this concern when speaking about the image of the Tower of Babel, saying “the temptation of Babel reappears in a globalization pursued without fraternity, in rapacious forms of neocolonialism, in ideological impositions and in all those ‘contacts without bonds’ that reduce human life to commerce.”
Despite the pope’s subtle criticisms, the speech was incredibly well-received, with a long standing ovation following. It focused primarily on artificial intelligence and safeguarding the things that make humanity unique in the face of the current technological revolution. Interestingly for “Magnifica Humanitas” readers, the pope substituted a new image of the world that could be possible with the ethical development of A.I. Rather than contrasting the Tower of Babel with the Biblical image of Nehemiah overseeing the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, as he had done in “Magnifica Humanitas,” the pope used Pentecost as his image instead, invoking its mix of languages and unity in diversity.
The key phrase of the day, though, was actually something much simpler from the pope’s UNESCO speech: He began by saying “I have come as a Pastor, to speak to you on behalf of the Church, which continually seeks to enter into dialogue and has a message to share with every people, with all women and men of good will.”
The pope, from the beginning, has viewed this visit as a pastoral one: This was the logic behind turning down the full military honors he was offered, and instead opting for a stripped-down military greeting on the tarmac at Orly Airport this morning. The phrase “I have come as a Pastor” likewise made clear that Leo did not see himself as simply a leader offering interesting ethical reflections, but as a pastor visiting his church, with messages that the rest of the world was welcome to reflect on as well.
Immediately after the UNESCO talk came the turning point in the day, when Pope Leo—who had maintained a neutral, attentive expression throughout the morning—was clearly joyful, riding in the popemobile through the grand Haussmannian avenues of Paris, waving to and blessing the estimated 300,000 people who lined the streets.
Stepping out of the popemobile, Leo XIV spent several minutes greeting the faithful, including many religious sisters, outside the restored Notre-Dame Cathedral. Inside, the pope led a Vespers service attended by clergy, religious and seminarians, where he laid out a model of the type of church he hopes to see in France.
The pope reflected at length on the image of the cathedral, which suffered a massive fire seven years ago. Today, he said, “Notre-Dame is more than a monument. The collective effort to rebuild it, and the splendour of the result reveal that the heart of a people beats here and that we stand at the living center of a civilization, where past and future embrace, where heaven and earth meet.”
The pope recalled how Notre Dame is open to visitors all day, and that when Masses are celebrated there, they are celebrated in the center, while visitors circulate around it. “Here the Church appears for what she is, namely a living organism, a believing community that gathers into its praise everything that culture and tradition have handed down to her. She is a body which, through her celebration, tells each person the reason for her existence.”
Keeping with the theme of openness to all people, the pope exhorted his clergy and lay listeners to “let yourselves be inspired” by the fact that the cathedral’s reconstruction was “an opportunity for an encounter that has expanded horizons of welcome and participation beyond the boundaries of ecclesial affiliation.”
The full text of the pope’s speech was published in America, and it is worth reading. He continued by urging the church to think of itself as missionary, particularly its lay people, and “welcoming those on the peripheries who already have a place in her heart; welcoming those who are far away but in reality are already near; welcoming the stranger, in whom Christ is already knocking at the door.”
He also spoke about the importance of the liturgy, calling for reverence and invoking France’s contributions to Vatican II, before urging his listeners to “place communion with the successor of Peter and with the Church before your personal preferences, so as to foster the unity of God’s people”—a comment that evoked this summer’s excommunication of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.
The pastor’s visit to his church culminated this evening with the youth vigil at the national stadium, whose 80,000 tickets reportedly sold out in under an hour. The pope took questions from young people about how to discern their vocations and how to respectfully share their faith with those who are not sympathetic to it.
In his speech to the young people, he stressed the importance of rejecting “pride, vanity, violence and greed,” saying that behind selfishness “hides a frightening loneliness.” He urged them to strive toward virtue and ended by invoking the words of St. Paul to “fight.” The word fight, he said, lands in a particular way in the land of Joan of Arc, but, he emphasized, “Our battle is not a battle against others. It does not employ the weapons of violence, contempt or oppression. Our only weapon is that of self-giving love.”
Tomorrow the pope will further demonstrate the type of church he hopes to see in France by visiting an archdiocesan-operated welcome center for migrants and refugees before speaking to a synodal assembly and group of catechumens and the newly baptized. The Parisian portion of the trip will end with a massive outdoor Mass at the Place de la Concorde, a key location in the French Revolution, where King Louis XIV and Marie-Antoinette were beheaded.
The irony of a papal Mass at what is arguably the birthplace of the secular French Republic has become somewhat of a flashpoint in the debate over whether the papal visit violates laicite: For his part, President Macron will sit out the event, as he has done for all of the religious events of the trip. Meanwhile, the pope will continue his visit to the French Catholic community, not as a victory lap celebrating new conversions, but constantly drawing attention, as he did in his speeches today, to Catholics’ vocation to reach out to the marginalized, evangelize, be grounded in prayer, seek forgiveness for wrongs and defend the rights of all people.
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