Pope Leo XIV in France: to proclaim the peace of Christ

Pope Leo XIV left Rome on the morning of 25 September 2026 for his first visit to France, a four-day journey between Paris, Lourdes and Metz. His plane landed shortly before ten o'clock near Paris, where the President of the Republic received him; it is the first visit of a pope to Paris since September 2008. Before the journalists, for half an hour, he greeted them in several languages — a "bonjour" in French among them — before announcing "a number of very important matters": "I am going to France, as everywhere else in the world, above all as a disciple of Jesus Christ, with the will to proclaim the peace of Christ throughout the world."

The first day is dense: an address at the Élysée before the authorities and the diplomatic corps, an address at UNESCO headquarters where he is to renew his call to regulate artificial intelligence, a 2.5 km procession by popemobile to Notre-Dame, vespers before priests, deacons and seminarians, then a prayer vigil at the Stade de France before 80,000 young people. There follow the grotto of Lourdes, a Sunday Mass on the sanctuary meadow, an address to the bishops, a private meeting with seven victims of sexual violence in the Church and a torchlight procession. The stated thematic agenda holds in three words: artificial intelligence, euthanasia, abuse.

We judge such a journey by the measure that does not change. The first office of the successor of Peter is not to comment on the age, but to confirm his brethren in the faith: "and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren" (Luke, XXII, 32). The peace a pope brings is that of Christ, which is not that of the world: "my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you" (John, XIV, 27). It is received on one's knees before it is pleaded from the tribunes.

By this measure, the order of things matters. Euthanasia is not a "social issue" to be regulated: it is the murder of the innocent, which the fifth commandment forbids without exception and which no compassion renders lawful. Here the Church has no opinion to qualify, but a law to repeat. On abuse, the first remedy is not procedural: it is the fear of God and penance, for it has been said that it were better for the guilty man that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea (Luke, XVII, 2).

As for that "fragment of synthetic DNA" said to carry the Gospel, it only reminds us that the Word is not kept in matter: it is preached, believed and kept in souls. The rest remains a program — that is, speeches announced and not deeds accomplished; we shall measure it by what he does, not by what he promises. At Lourdes, at least, the Blessed Virgin awaits a speech from no one.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment; Gospel according to Saint Luke, XXII, 32 and XVII, 2; Gospel according to Saint John, XIV, 27 (Douay-Rheims, from the Vulgate).