Pope Leo XIV visits France for talks on AI, bioethics and European security
The four-day visit includes a Lourdes meeting with abuse survivors and a Paris Mass expected to draw up to 1 million people.
Pope Leo XIV arrived in France on Friday for a four-day state and pastoral visit spanning Paris, Lourdes and Metz. His schedule includes 15 formal addresses and a meeting on Monday with leaders invited from all 27 European Union member nations.
The Metz gathering, convened at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron, is centered on continental solidarity and peace. Diplomatic officials say Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is among the invited foreign leaders expected to take part. The city lies in the Moselle region, the historic home of former French Prime Minister Robert Schuman, a principal architect of post-World War II European integration.
The trip, from Sept. 25 to Sept. 28, is Leo’s fifth Apostolic Journey as pontiff and the first formal papal visit to France since Pope Benedict XVI traveled there in September 2008. After landing at Paris Orly International Airport on Friday, Leo held formal talks with Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron at the Élysée Palace.
Later, he addressed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its Paris headquarters. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the address focused on human identity, existence and the moral boundaries of artificial intelligence. In May, Leo issued an encyclical calling for binding international regulations on AI development and warning against its use as an instrument of exclusion or military domination. That approach contrasts with the policy of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, which has prioritized rapid technological deregulation to maintain market dominance over foreign competitors.
On Sunday, Leo will travel to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in southwestern France’s Pyrenees foothills, where he is scheduled to speak about bioethics and human dignity. France became the first nation to explicitly guarantee a right to abortion in its constitution in March 2024, through an amendment to Article 34. Lawmakers subsequently passed legislation setting legal protocols for medical aid in dying for adults with incurable illnesses. Catholic doctrine strictly opposes both practices.
Before leaving Paris, Leo led a prayer service on Friday at Notre-Dame Cathedral, the first papal worship service there since the April 15, 2019, fire destroyed its 19th-century spire and wooden roof framing. The cathedral reopened for public worship in December 2024 after a five-year, $900 million restoration funded by global donations.
Saturday’s open-air Mass at Place de la Concorde is expected to draw as many as 1 million worshippers. French civil authorities expanded the secure event zone beyond the 1.2-mile length of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and Leo will travel through the crowd in the Popemobile before the service. The expected turnout comes despite France’s tradition of *laïcité*, the constitutional separation of church and state established by law in 1905, and a long-term decline in traditional religious practice.
Figures from the Conference of Bishops of France show that more than 21,000 adults have received Catholic baptism so far this year, a sharp increase led mainly by people aged 18 to 25. Retired French Bishop Marc Stenger, who headed the Diocese of Troyes from 1999 to 2020, noted that the visit has mobilized French Catholics seeking moral stability amid global uncertainty.
At Lourdes, Leo will also meet privately and without a script with seven survivors of clerical sexual abuse. The meeting follows a 2021 report by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE), chaired by senior civil servant Jean-Marc Sauvé. It estimated that Catholic clergy abused 216,000 children in France between 1950 and 2020, with the figure rising to 330,000 when lay officials in church-run institutions and schools were included.
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes draws millions of pilgrims each year, particularly people seeking medical healings. It is the site where 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous reported 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. The French episcopate chose “That the world may have life” as the visit’s theme, framing the pastoral engagements in Lourdes and the international policy addresses across Paris and Metz through Monday’s conclusion.
