Saturday promises to be spectacular. After various pastoral visits, Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to celebrate a solemn outdoor Mass at 3 p.m. on the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Élysées. The pope will then travel to Lourdes, where he will pray at the Grotto of Massabielle. The following day, he will celebrate Mass on the sanctuary’s meadow and take part in a torchlight procession.
Finally, on Monday 28 September, he will travel to Metz. After an interfaith meeting and an event dedicated to “the roots of Europe, for peace and unity”, he will celebrate a final Mass in Saint-Étienne Cathedral before returning to Rome.
The choice of destinations is revealing: the political and cultural capital, the great Marian shrine and, finally, a city chosen for its European significance. The trip is therefore not merely pastoral; it also invites reflection on France, its history, its identity and its place in Europe.
The first surprise was the scale of public interest. Had the organizers anticipated such demand? Just a few hours after registration opened, all 80,000 available spots for the youth vigil at the Stade de France had been snapped up. The Diocese of Paris announced that capacity had been reached as early as 10. August, with a waiting list now in place.
The enthusiasm does not stop there: more than 200,000 people registered that same day for the Mass on 26 September, while several hundred thousand faithful are expected in the Concorde and Champs-Élysées areas. In addition, more than 12,000 volunteers had already signed up.
The Pope and the President
The pontiff’s visit is politically sensitive. No sooner will the pope set foot in Paris than he will meet with Emmanuel Macron. Yet the two men are irreconcilably divided over end-of-life care.
France has just taken a major step. On 15 July, Parliament definitively passed the law on the right to assisted dying, with provisions that make it one of the most permissive legislative frameworks in the world. During the long months of debate leading up to the vote, Pope Leo XIV’s position clashed head-on with that of French lawmakers – backed by the French president, who has made euthanasia one of his top priorities.
In his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, published in May, the pope reiterated that the first human right is the right to life “from conception to its natural end” and explicitly described euthanasia as a “gravely illicit” choice.
Just a few weeks before Pope Leo XIV’s arrival in France, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, president of the French Bishops’ Conference, stated that the pope had “very strong words” on this issue and that his voice was expected to carry particular weight in France.
The question already being asked in Catholic circles is therefore simple: will Leo XIV take advantage of his visit to France to confront Emmanuel Macron – either directly or indirectly – on this law?
That need not mean a public confrontation between the two men. A remark made at the Élysée Palace, a homily at Notre-Dame, a speech before the authorities or a few words at the Place de la Concorde might be enough to get the message across.
Secularism: A French Obsession
Some will not look kindly upon the pope’s interference in French political life. Secularism is a sensitive subject. The Mass for Leo XIV will take place at Place de la Concorde, one of the most symbolically charged sites in French revolutionary history. It was there, under the name Place de la Révolution, that the guillotine was set up between 1793 and 1794. More than a thousand people were executed there, some because of their faith. Seeing the pope celebrate Mass today in the heart of Paris, potentially in front of several hundred thousand people, therefore has a highly charged historical resonance.
The French Republic, particularly vigilant about the limits of religious expression in public spaces, is unlikely to regard such an event with indifference. French secularism is legally based on the neutrality of the state. However, in public discourse, it has in recent years come to mean something much broader: the removal of religion from public life, accompanied by a mistrust of Catholicism sometimes tinged with hostility. The presence of a pope in the heart of Paris brings this tension to the surface.
A Catholic Renewal?
France remains a deeply secularized country, marked by decades of decline in religious practice and vocations. But French Catholicism has not disappeared as completely as some had imagined.
Adult baptisms are on the rise. Young people account for a growing proportion of new catechumens. And, above all, a new generation seems less embarrassed than previous ones to identify publicly as Catholic.
The phenomenon is still limited to a minority, but it is culturally significant. For some young French people, faith is no longer merely a family legacy from which one preserves a few rituals or cultural references. It is becoming an identity they openly embrace, sometimes even in defiance of their surroundings.
In 2025, more than 10,000 adults were baptized at Easter, a 45% increase in one year. Most notably, 18–25-year-olds are now the largest age group among adult catechumens, accounting for 42% of baptism candidates. Over the past ten years, their numbers have skyrocketed.
With Pope Leo XIV’s visit drawing thousands of young people eager to see him, growing waiting lists and hundreds of thousands of French people preparing to attend his Mass, it is becoming difficult to argue that the Catholic faith has simply disappeared. In a month, France will not merely welcome a pope: through him, the country may discover the existence of a Catholicism that it had grown accustomed to overlooking.
