At Metz, Leo XIV invokes the Christian roots of Europe before the assembled religions

On 28 September 2026, on the last day of his apostolic journey to France, Pope Leo XIV went to Metz, to the Robert Schuman Congress Centre. There, in the morning, he held a meeting with the heads of France's religions, closed by the signing of the “Appeal of Metz,” then the longest address of his journey, entitled “To the roots of Europe, for peace and unity.” Present were Emmanuel Macron, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, president of the Bishops' Conference of France, Grand Duke Guillaume of Luxembourg, Prince Albert II of Monaco and several presidents of European episcopal conferences. Speaking before the pope, the head of state defended a “Europe of defence and of peace” and support for Ukraine.

To the heads of the other religions, the pope declared: “Religions are guardians of life: they affirm its sacred value.” He added that “to invoke the name of God to legitimise violence or oppression is a profanation of that name,” and that “to dialogue does not diminish our identity but expresses it with simplicity and truth, opening us to the difference of the other.”

Before the European leaders, he paid homage to Robert Schuman (1886-1963), deputy for the Moselle and author of the declaration of 9 May 1950, invoked Saint Benedict and the radiance of Gregorian chant from Metz across the Carolingian empire, down to this conclusion: “Without this monastic soil, European civilisation as we know it would not exist.” In the address to the religions, he cited two texts later than the Council: an encyclical of his predecessor and a pontifical message for peace of 2001.

The day was widely summed up as an appeal against “rearmament.” The full text of the address contains no such formula, and, in the same hall, the head of state defended the arming of Ukraine. We report what the pope said, not what was ascribed to him.

What the Church has always taught

That Europe was born of the faith is not an opinion: it is the constant teaching of the Church. Leo XIII recalled that the Christian nations were shaped by the Church and that Christ must reign over societies as over souls (Immortale Dei, 1885). The monastic soil, sacred song, law and the school came out of that root. On this point, the pope's homage to the Christian foundations of the continent meets the perennial doctrine, and we receive it with gratitude.

But the same tradition draws a line the age would like to erase. There are not several religions guarding one same sacred life: there is one Revelation and one Church, outside which there is no salvation. Pius XI condemned the idea that all religions are more or less good and that they might be gathered on an equal footing; the unity willed by Christ, he wrote, is achieved only by the return of the dissidents to the one Church (Mortalium animos, 1928). The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches likewise the oneness of the Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

The measure

Measured by this rule, the address divides in two. The praise of Schuman, of Saint Benedict and of the civilisation born of the cloister is just, and it must be said as plainly as one would note a fault. To recognise that Europe would not exist without its Christian soil is to recognise what the tradition has always held.

The formula “religions are guardians of life” and the common signing of the “Appeal of Metz” call, for their part, for a reserve. To treat the religions as co-guardians of one same sacred blurs the distinction Pius XI defended: dialogue remains licit so long as it leaves whole the truth that the Church alone is the keeper of Revelation; it ceases to be so as soon as it suggests the parity of beliefs. We judge the act and its wording, not the intention of the man.

For the faithful, the conduct is simple: to receive with joy all that recalls the Christian roots of Europe, and to hold without flinching to the oneness of the faith those roots bore. One does not guard life by adding up religions; one guards it by guarding the true one.

Sources. Leo XIII, encyclical Immortale Dei (1885), on the Christian constitution of States; Pius XI, encyclical Mortalium animos (1928), against religious indifferentism and interconfessional congresses; Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the unity and oneness of the holy Catholic Church.