by Marie-Lucile Kubacki
Paris – The Pope’s visit to France was eagerly awaited, and Leo XIV’s first day in the country has already been a success. One needed only to hear the 80,000 young people gathered at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis singing with one voice, “It’s only goodbye, Holy Father,” as the Pope waved to them through the open window of the car carrying him away at the end of a day rich in encounters and emotion.
Beyond ideological polarizations
The programme for 25 September included the Élysée Palace, UNESCO, Notre-Dame de Paris and the vigil with young people: the political world, cultural diplomacy, the memory of heritage and the hope of the young.
Popular spirituality and intellectual reflection have sometimes been set against one another, weakening Christian witness through the polarisation and ideologisation of debate. Leo XIV’s visit, by contrast, seems to have enabled French Catholicism to breathe with both lungs.
The Procession of the Saints of France
This synthesis was evident at the Stade de France, where the vigil opened with songs and a large-scale performance in several scenes tracing the history of France’s saints. From the first days of evangelisation with Saint Denis and of fraternal charity with Saint Martin, to the courage of Joan of Arc and the missionary zeal of Pauline Jaricot, each episode was conceived like a stained-glass window in a medieval cathedral: a visual catechesis accessible to all. The successive scenes linked service to the poorest, represented by Saint Vincent de Paul; the confident joy of Saint Thérèse and Saint John Bosco; and the contemplative depth of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. These scenes concluded with a procession of the saints of France, during which the pontiff wiped away a tear of emotion. The vigil also included a moment of veneration of the Holy Tunic of Argenteuil – traditionally revered as the tunic worn by Jesus during the Passion. Together, they offered tens of thousands of young people a path of spiritual formation, preparing them for the prayer and the Pope’s teaching, preceded by a question-and-answer session with them.
Freedom and holiness are gifts.
In his addresses, Leo XIV reflected in particular on the relationship between holiness and freedom. Freedom, he explained to the young people, is not simply the ability to do whatever one wants: it is received and fulfilled in relationship with the truth, which the Pope identifies with Christ. Drawing on Saint Paul and his call to “shun,” “strive” and “fight,” he described holiness as a concrete path: shunning pride, violence and greed; striving for righteousness, faith, charity and gentleness; and fighting not against others but against evil, with “our only weapon […] that of self-giving love.” From this perspective, Christian freedom means neither withdrawing from the world nor seeking power over others. It enables people to choose the good and to serve.
The Pope gave this reflection a popular face by inviting the young people to take the saints as their examples, familiar figures in France’s religious memory. “Next, draw inspiration from the example of the saints. Even in the face of persecution, these brothers and sisters of ours opened paths of peace. Look to those priests who were passionate about Christ, such as Saint Eugene de Mazenod and Saint John Mary Vianney. Look to the mystical beauty of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus; the fervor in charity and mission of Blessed Pauline Jaricot; and the courage of the fifty martyrs of the apostolate who served their brothers and sisters even to the point of sacrificing their own lives during the Second World War.” These saints, he continued, “changed the course of history by leading many people from hardship to hope, since they first changed their own hearts, transforming them in the light of faith.” The response to God’s call, he said, is nourished by prayer and service, adoration and action, silence and proclamation. With its songs and living tableaux, the gathering offered an entry point into reflection, which in turn illuminated daily commitment: popular art serving the understanding of faith.
The Eucharist nourishes the communion of the People of God
This same search for unity had been voiced earlier in the day at Notre-Dame, during Vespers with bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, and seminarians. Speaking about the liturgy, Leo XIV recalled that it cannot be separated from the life of the Church or from the way its members treat one another. He called on them to put communion before personal preferences: “In this respect, the liturgy remains a reflection of life. Eucharistic joy takes root and spreads wherever harmony is restored, wherever dignity is renewed, wherever authority becomes service, and wherever freedom is able to flourish again. This is the greatest gift we can share. Therefore, place communion with the successor of Peter and with the Church before your personal preferences, so as to foster the unity of God’s people. Thus, together, we will bear prophetic witness to the possibility of a reconciled world.”
At Notre-Dame, the beauty of the heritage was thus placed at the service of a present task: making communion a lived reality, even amid tensions and differences. The restored cathedral, the fruit of a collective effort praised by the Pope, emerged in his words as a sign that shared work—bringing together individuals and institutions, even “beyond the boundaries of ecclesial affiliation”—can bring back to life what seemed lost. As he had already said in Spain, tradition and heritage can convey a way of life and a shared impetus, provided they are not frozen into nostalgia.
Between “intelligent” machines and discarded people
At UNESCO, the Pope extended this reflection to the human family. The organisation, he said, is a place where humanity can reflect on itself, its history and its future. Promoting education, science and culture is impossible without also promoting the lives of the women and men who are their protagonists. Leo XIV warned of the paradox of a society that attributes the name “intelligence” to computational systems while struggling to recognise the inalienable dignity of human beings, judging their lives by efficiency and rejecting and discarding them when they are no longer considered productive. Human dignity remains intact even in the most vulnerable circumstances, he recalled: “The human being is certainly one who is born, but also one who dies. Our dignity is not destroyed by illness or suffering, nor is it dependent upon our abilities. Rather, it calls for loving care at every stage of life.”
Addressed to representatives of an international organisation, this reflection connects with the concrete experience of care and vulnerability evoked at the Élysée, as well as with the Pope’s call to young people to stay close to the weakest. From reflection on technology to encounters with vulnerable people, one thread runs through the day: a society is measured by the place it makes for those whom a dehumanising gaze might consider useless.
The Pope also called for science and culture to remain at the service of peace and the human person. Information, he warned, is not the same as wisdom; technologies, including artificial intelligence, cannot answer questions of meaning rooted in human experience. To illustrate the opposing paths open to humanity, he invoked two biblical images: the tower of Babel, unity imposed through domination, and the public square of Pentecost, communion in which differences of language are heard without being erased. The high intellectual tradition, then, is not a privilege reserved for an elite. It helps us understand what unites people and nations and discern the conditions for lasting peace.
In Praise of the “Proper Secular Nature” of the Earthly City
At the Élysée Palace, where he began his day, Leo XIV also situated his remarks within France’s intellectual and political history, from cathedral schools and universities to the Enlightenment and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. He recalled that liberty, equality and fraternity are not merely slogans, but ethical imperatives whose fulfilment can draw inspiration from the Gospel. He also defended a conception of secularism that does not exclude religion from public life, but makes dialogue and cooperation in the service of the common good possible. “How can we fail to see such a commitment as an expression of the authentic ‘secularity’ of the earthly city? A Christian engaged in public service and is guided by the light of his or her conscience illumined by faith, cannot be considered a proselytizer or a threat to the unity of the nation.” Liberty, equality and fraternity must follow the compass of the dignity of our magnificent humanity, lest they lose their way. And whose measure is the defense of the most vulnerable
From the Élysée to UNESCO, from Notre-Dame to the Stade de France, the day built bridges between worlds not always accustomed to meeting: public life and faith, high culture and popular practice, liturgical prayer and social commitment. The saints presented to the young, the reflections addressed to diplomats and education leaders, and the call for unity within the Church all served to remind people that France’s Christian tradition is neither a museum-piece inheritance nor a collective emotion. It is all of these things, but much more: a memory, a body of thought and a shared search for something greater than oneself, and higher than the shallow promises of consumerism.
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