Pope Leo XIV will visit three cities in France from Sept. 25–28, making stops in Paris, Lourdes, and Metz to meet with young people, government officials, the sick, and migrants, among others. During the trip, the Holy Father will be discussing issues ranging from artificial intelligence to immigration to the Catholic Church in France today.
Here are 12 things to know about his trip and France’s rich Catholic history:
1. Pope Leo will be the third pope to visit Paris and Lourdes.
Pope Francis made three visits to French cities including Strasbourg, Marseille, and Ajaccio in Corsica but never visited Paris or Lourdes. Pope Leo will now become the third reigning pope, after St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to visit both of the iconic Catholic destinations of Paris and Lourdes.
Pope Benedict XVI made the longest visit to Lourdes by a reigning pope, spending four days there in September 2008 for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions.
2. The first papal liturgy at Notre-Dame will be celebrated since the devastating fire.
On Sept. 25, Pope Leo will open his apostolic journey to France by presiding over solemn vespers alongside clergy, consecrated religious, and seminarians inside Notre-Dame de Paris.
Seven years after the tragic 2019 fire brought down the cathedral’s spire and roof, this evening prayer marks the very first papal liturgy beneath its restored Gothic vaults.
Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. | Credit: Mistervlad/Shutterstock
3. Pope Leo XIV will celebrate Mass at Paris’ Place de la Concorde.
Built as Place Louis XV to honor a king, it became Place de la Révolution during the French Revolution — where Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and more than a thousand others were executed. It was renamed Place de la Concorde, “Square of Harmony,” in 1795 as a gesture toward national reconciliation.
Place de la Concorde is the largest public square in Paris, spanning over 20 acres.
4. A relic of Christ’s tunic will be on display for an event during the pope’s trip.
The pope will take part in a youth prayer vigil at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on Sept. 25. More than 80,000 French young people have registered for the event.
At the conclusion of the event, a relic of Christ’s tunic will be on display. This will be the first time a pope will witness an exposition of the Holy Tunic, the garment believed to have been worn by Christ during his passion, which is preserved in the Basilica of Saint-Denis.
The special relic is put on display during regular expositions every 50 years, as well as on extraordinary occasions — the most recent being in 2023 — but it has never before been brought before a pope.
The relic will travel under tight security from the basilica to the stadium, which is about 3.7 miles away.
The Stade de France has its own interesting history in that it was built specifically to host the 1998 FIFA World Cup Final — where France famously defeated Brazil 3–0 to claim its first world title. The 80,000-seat stadium is set to trade soccer anthems for sacred hymns as it will now welcome that exact same full-capacity crowd, transforming the historic pitch from the birthplace of French football glory into an altar filled with 80,000 young pilgrims holding candles and praying alongside the pope.
5. Pope Leo will pray at the exact grotto where Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette.
The Holy Father’s first Lourdes event on Sept. 26 is an evening prayer at the Grotto of the Apparitions at Massabielle — one of the most recognizable Marian apparition locations on Earth.
Also while in Lourdes, the pope will lead the rosary and Marian torchlight procession at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sept. 27.
Sunday’s Mass will be celebrated by the pope at the shrine’s meadow — the prairie — rather than inside a basilica. The prairie at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is a wide, open grassy meadow located across the Gave River from the main Grotto.
In a deeply Lourdes-specific moment, the Holy Father will visit the staff and sick community of the Accueil Notre-Dame, one of the sanctuary’s hospitality facilities for pilgrims who are ill or disabled.
Since 14-year-old St. Bernadette saw Our Lady in 1858, over 200 million pilgrims have visited the grotto of Massabielle. Out of more than 7,000 claimed medical cures, 72 have been officially recognized by the Church and a rigorous medical bureau as scientifically inexplicable miracles.
6. French pilgrims wonʼt need translations when Pope Leo XIV takes the podium.
The Holy Father speaks French with ease. Drawing on paternal French ancestry, early immersion that saw him tutoring high school classmates in Michigan by age 15, and years delivering addresses across Francophone Africa during his tenure as Augustinian prior general, the Chicago-born pontiff brings a lifelong linguistic fluency and a deep love for French spirituality directly to his encounters in France.
7. France is the birthplace of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a beloved French Discalced Carmelite nun who is also known as the “Little Flower.” She died at just 24 years old and was proclaimed a doctor of the Church by St. John Paul II in 1997.
Pope Leo will make a private visit to cloistered Carmelite nuns at their monastery in Lourdes during his visit.
8. France holds the title “Eldest Daughter of the Church.”
France earned the title “la fille aînée de lʼÉglise” (“eldest daughter of the Church”) because King Clovis I of the Franks was baptized in Reims around A.D. 496, making the Kingdom of the Franks the first major Western kingdom to adopt orthodox Catholicism rather than paganism or Arianism.
9. The popes lived in France for nearly 70 years.
During the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377), seven successive popes — all French — ruled the universal Catholic Church from the Palais des Papes in southern France rather than Rome, until St. Catherine of Siena helped convince Pope Gregory XI to return to the Eternal City.
10. The Miraculous Medal was revealed in the heart of Paris.
In 1830, the Virgin Mary appeared to novice sister St. Catherine Labouré at the chapel on the Rue du Bac in Paris, giving her the design for the Miraculous Medal. Millions were distributed within years, and the medal remains one of the most widely worn sacramentals in the global Church.
11. Only two French monks know the secret recipe for Chartreuse.
The famous herbal liqueur Chartreuse has been crafted since 1737 by Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery near Grenoble. To this day, only three monks at any given time know the secret recipe of 130 herbs, plants, and flowers.
12. Dom Pérignon champagne was perfected by a Benedictine monk.
Dom Pierre Pérignon, a 17th-century French Benedictine monk and cellarer at the Abbey of Hautvillers, revolutionized winemaking by developing thick-glass bottles, cork stoppers, and blending methods that prevented bottles from exploding — laying the foundation for modern champagne.
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