The Pope’s trip to France is already turning the country upside down! Despite its well known secularism, France has never abandoned its claim to being “the eldest daughter of the church,” based on the conversion of Clovis to Christianity in AD 496. In his first visit to France in 1980, Pope Jean-Paul II asked the essential question: “France, eldest daughter of the Church, are you faithful to the promises of your baptism?”
Received at the Elysée palace by Emmanuel Macron on Friday September 25, the Pope then paid a long visit to UNESCO before touring the city in his popemobile, welcomed in the streets of Paris by some 300,000 Catholics who turned out for the occasion. After Vespers at Notre-Dame, he concluded his first day with a meeting with 80,000 youth at the Stade de France in the evening! Unable to find other meaningful words in their vocabulary, Le Monde, surprised, reports that the youth gave him a reception comparable to those they reserve to a great “rock and roll” star. On Sept. 26, he holds an evening mass at the Place de la Concorde, where 600,000 people are expected.
Indeed, the visit of the Pope is intersecting a recent surge in France of recruitment to the Catholic Church, and in practicing activities, such as attending masses and baptizing the newborns. In interviews with the media, this new wave of catholic youth report, among other motivations to join the church and become active: the terrible tensions and lack of sense in the present world and the need to do something about it. Unfortunately, several of the top oligarchic families here, France’s top billionaires, such as Bernard Arnault and Vincent Bolloré, are also defending “their own version” of Christianity closer to anti-immigration political currents. Catholic influencers close to them are also working to capture the ferment among the youth.
Macron received the Pope at the Élysée
Some 500 dignitaries were invited by Macron to hear the Pope speak at the Élysée Palace on Friday morning, including the diplomatic corps and high level authorities of the State, heads of political parties at the national assembly, and artisans who participated in the reconstruction of Notre Dame.
At the Élysée, Pope Leo XIV said that “the mistaken belief that the possession of nuclear weapons is a guarantee of security is spreading and fueling a new arms race that is difficult to control.” “Peace is not a balance of power; rather, it is built day by day through dialogue and justice,” he said. He quoted his predecessor John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris: “justice, right reason and the recognition of human dignity cry out insistently for an end to the arms race. The stockpiles of armaments built up in various countries must be reduced all round and simultaneously by the parties concerned. Nuclear weapons must be banned. A general agreement must be reached on a suitable disarmament program, with an effective system of mutual control.”
“I urge you, then, never to grow resigned to the prospect of war or to consider it ‘inevitable,’ but instead to persevere in the promotion of dialogue and diplomacy,” he continued. “In the face of rumors of war and the varied crises troubling our world, France is called to remain a tireless champion of peace and multilateralism, particularly within our beloved Europe. May France, faithful to its traditional values, work for a peace that is unarmed and disarming.”
Speaking of the Middle East, the Pope said: “The gravity of these situations must challenge us and ought to summon each of us, wherever we find ourselves, to a genuine conversion of heart and a change of attitude. By humbly acknowledging our need for one another, we will be able to work together more effectively to build a civilization of love in the heart of our world, which has become so much more complex and interdependent.”
Citing his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and Georges Bernanos’s warning of a “Paradise of Machines,” the Pope said that “if we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a ‘paradise of machines’ invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment.” He also warned against trends “that risk turning science and technology into profit-driven ventures promoting genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs or the possibility of arranging one’s own death.” On France’s secularism he said: “An authentic secularity, then, consists not in excluding religion from the public sphere or from education, but in striving to ensure that the State and religious institutions maintain dialogue and join forces in the service of the common good.”
The Pope quoted his predecessor, John XXIII: “Justice, wisdom, and a sense of humanity demand […] that the arms race be stopped; they demand the parallel and simultaneous reduction of existing armaments in various countries, the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and finally, disarmament duly carried out by common agreement and accompanied by effective controls.” Leo XIV deplored “ the erroneous belief that the possession of nuclear weapons is a guarantee of security, which fuels a new arms race that is difficult to control.” Emphasizing this point, he reiterated: “Peace is not a balance of power; it is built every day through dialogue and justice.
Addressing the danger of the anti-immigration campaigns led by some parties, the Pope expressed his hope: “May your liberty grow in constant concern for the common good. May your fraternity embrace the entire human family. And may the equality to which you aspire always be built upon the foundations of justice and charity — not by erasing the differences between people, but by allowing them to flourish harmoniously for the benefit of society as a whole.”
Finally, the Pope voiced criticism against “the risk and the dangers of the offer of a programmed death,” referring to the recent legalization of euthanasia in France.
