The skepticism was palpable, but it was nothing new.
As far back as 1997, when St. Pope John Paul II held World Youth Day in Paris, there were fears that he would not be able to draw the kind of crowds he was accustomed to in other parts of the world. France was secularizing at a rapid pace, and its society seemed already impossible to penetrate with messages of faith.
Instead, 1.2 million young people from around the world filled the Champs-Élysées, a show of Catholic energy and strength that made headlines across Europe.
Pope Leo XIV’s Sept. 25-28 voyage to France faced its own challenge: matching the kind of enthusiasm that its southern neighbor, Spain, showed during his wildly successful visit in June. (Spain, after all, has conspicuously followed the path toward secularization charted by the French.)
When I arrived in Paris on the eve of the trip’s start, I found a scene that reminded me of the pope’s visit to Istanbul: nothing in the city indicated that a major event was about to take place. In Turkey, that was understandable, given that Catholics make up only 0.07% of the population.
In France, where 29% of the population still identifies as Catholic, that figure didn’t lead me to expect streets decorated with welcome banners or Vatican flags, as in Spain or even Lebanon last December. The morning of the pope’s arrival, life in Paris seemed completely normal; activities continued as usual, and it appeared that the state visit was not capturing the public’s attention.
But when the pope left the UNESCO headquarters in Paris that afternoon, faithful turned out in droves on the streets to accompany Leo on his way to the Basilica of Notre Dame, the country’s most famous cathedral. That was when the public’s fervor began to yield some surprises.
That evening, at the Stade de France, the prayer vigil with young people displayed a joy worthy of admiration. Some 80,000 young people — including some non-Catholics — gathered to hear Leo’s message: an invitation to seek holiness, peace, and a living relationship with Jesus. Following a theatrical performance in which French saints were portrayed, the pope told the young people present that they themselves were “the saints of France.”
“The saints changed the course of history, leading many from suffering to hope, because they first changed their own hearts, transforming them in the light of faith,” the pontiff told them. “Dear young people, as you discern your vocation, be assured that the Lord does not speak to you in a confusing way, but addresses each of you by name and invites you to follow him because he loves you.”
If the spectacle of that day had already dispelled fears of a lack of enthusiasm, the Mass in the Place de la Concorde was a true show of force, a quintessential demonstration of a Church still capable of drawing crowds from all over the country. Estimates put the total number of people at 800,000.
Among the faithful, we found people of all kinds: young people, families, and seniors. The sight of people going to confession in the street surprised even the most skeptical.
The next day, in Lourdes, the audience was different. The participants were almost all older adults, a scene dominated by wheelchairs and crutches. Here, Leo spoke out forcefully in defense of the dignity of those suffering physically, assuring them that in God’s eyes, their worth remained intact.
Meeting with sick pilgrims in Lourdes, Leo’s message that “medicine must never be servant of programmed death” came across as a not-so-subtle rebuke of the country’s recent legalization of assisted suicide.
That afternoon, at the Notre Dame shelter, the pope once again lashed out against these laws, asserting that “not everything that is legal is necessarily moral.”
“It is impossible to regard causing death as something normal,” said the pontiff.
While the pope celebrated Mass in a field outside the shrine, the grotto of the Lourdes apparitions was completely deserted. A few of us took advantage of this unusual opportunity to visit the place where Bernadette spoke with the Virgin Mary — a destination for pilgrimages, including by popes, for nearly two centuries. That night, Leo led a torchlight procession with some 150,000 faithful.
In Metz, the pope focused his message on reaffirming Europe’s Christian roots amid concerns that the continent is seeing its cultural heritage give way to Islam and secularism. President Emmanuel Macron attended the Mass at St. Stephen’s Cathedral and, despite their disagreements on issues like the assisted suicide law, maintained a cordial manner with Leo throughout the trip.
After a brief stop in the homeland of the Venerable Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, the pope headed back to Rome aboard a plane with members of the press.
In his customary press conference aboard the plane, he notably chose to set aside Italian and answer questions solely in Spanish and English.
The topics included artificial intelligence, sexual abuse in the French Church, wars, and housing in Spain, among others. Regarding his future travels, the pope stated that only one trip is scheduled for next year: World Youth Day in South Korea. Everything else remains to be decided.
The next time Leo boards a plane, it will be returning to his beloved continent of South America in November. The pope will visit Peru, where he spent a greater part of his priesthood as a missionary; his predecessor’s homeland of Argentina; and Uruguay, a country that has become secularized more quickly than most Latin American countries.
