Pope Leo XIV made his first apostolic journey to France from 25-28 September 2026, visiting Paris, Saint-Denis, Lourdes and Metz. Each stop reflected a particular facet of France and its Christian history, and this article compiles a few highlights from the visit.
Monday, 28 September: Metz
- Interreligious meeting in Metz
- “To the Roots of Europe for Peace and Unity”
- Holy Mass at Metz Cathedral
Sunday, 27 September: Lourdes
- Meeting with the bishops of France
- Mass on the Prairie of the Shrine of Lourdes
- Meeting with the sick of the Accueil Notre-Dame
- Rosary and torchlight procession
Saturday, 26 September: Paris and Lourdes
- Visit to Maison Bakhita
- Meeting with the Provincial Synodal Assembly, catechumens and the newly baptized
- Mass with huge crowds at the Place de la Concorde
- Prayer at the grotto of Massabielle, in Lourdes
- Meeting with the authorities (Élysée Palace)
- Visit to UNESCO
- Vespers at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris
- Prayer vigil with young people at the Stade de France (Saint-Denis)
Monday, September 28: Interreligious meeting in Metz
On Monday, the last day of the journey, the Pope arrived in Metz, close to the borders with Germany and Luxembourg. The city has changed countries several times and has suffered three wars in less than a century. Robert Schuman, one of the fathers of the European Union, lived in Metz, and at a conference centre that bears his name, Leo XIV met with representatives of different religious traditions.
The Pope reminded them that Schuman knew how to transform “old dividing lines into bridges of hope” and pointed out that believers today have a similar task: to show that, beyond borders, it is always possible to meet again and build peace. He championed a confident dialogue: “Dialogue does not diminish our identity, but expresses it with simplicity and truth.”
He warned against using religion to justify violence. To invoke God’s name in order to justify violence or oppression, he said, “is to profane that name,” and religious discourse must constantly call for “the disarmament of hearts and words.”
He also asked religions to show themselves as guardians of life, especially alongside the most fragile, because “the greatness of a civilization is not measured by its material achievements, but by the way it cares for, protects and upholds the human person.”
Read the full address here.
“To the Roots of Europe for Peace and Unity”
Before the celebration of Mass, the Robert Schuman Conference Centre hosted the last major address of the apostolic visit. At the venue, alongside President Emmanuel Macron and Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, were the French bishops, representatives of various episcopal conferences and senior officials of the European institutions. Drawing inspiration from the historic Schuman Declaration of 1950, Pope Leo XIV reviewed the foundations of the continent and the present reality.
Pointing to the deteriorating geopolitical landscape, he warned that “relations between individuals and states are becoming increasingly uncivilized. The value of keeping one’s word is dismissed; instead, people boast of lies and deceit.” He also cautioned against “the illusion that rearmament is the answer” and put an uncomfortable question to the leaders present: whether they are truly making “creative efforts” to advance peace, or whether they are simply seeking to “stem the tide of war” while preparing for wars that they assume are still to come.
Turning to the phenomenon of migration, he stressed that the response cannot be reduced to mere administrative management: “To welcome a person means to integrate them as if they were part of one’s own family, offering them the opportunity to develop their gifts, abilities and sensibilities, but also to enter into the life of the household.”
Likewise, in the face of contemporary haste and the obsession with “having everything, and right away,” Leo XIV upheld the value of patience and time: true solidarity is not improvised but built with small steps, so that no one feels “abandoned or forgotten.”
At the end, the Pope made a passionate appeal to the new generations: “Love life at every moment, and do not be afraid of the future! Do not be afraid to start a family, to bring children into the world, to defend the dignity of every person, from the moment of conception to death. Do not be afraid to work tirelessly for the good of your communities, including through political engagement.”
Read the full address here.
Mass at Metz Cathedral: forgiveness in the “Lanterne du Bon Dieu”
The Pope’s trip to France concluded on Monday afternoon with the celebration of Mass in Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Metz, the emblematic church known as the “Lanterne du Bon Dieu” (the “Good Lord’s Lantern”) for its more than 6,500 square meters of stained-glass windows, among which those designed by the Jewish painter Marc Chagall stand out. It was Leo XIV’s last public event on French soil.
In a region historically marked by the scars of the border between France and Germany, the Pontiff centered his homily on the power of forgiveness. Reflecting on the Gospel passage about turning the other cheek, he acknowledged that this attitude is often interpreted as weakness, and invited everyone to ask themselves an interior question: “What do attitudes such as vengeance, retaliation, and rejection bring about, both in the world and within ourselves?”
His answer appealed directly to the memory of the city itself: “It is not true that those who seek revenge are stronger than those who forgive. It is not true that those who refuse to yield are stronger than those who seek reconciliation. It is not true that those who walk away are stronger than those who face the challenge of walking together.”
Drawing on the prophet Isaiah, Leo XIV compared peace to a house; a gift from God that also requires everyone’s work, and that can only be sustained by a charity capable of forgiving “without calculation or limit, just as in a family.”
To conclude, the Pope turned to the cathedral’s own light to look toward Europe’s future. He recalled that true coexistence is born not of uniformity but of “the harmony of differences, where the wounds of the past become openings through which light shines.”
Read the full homily here.
Sunday, September 27: Rosary and torchlight procession
On Sunday night, the shrine was filled with light as thousands of pilgrims, many of them sick people on stretchers and in wheelchairs, advanced with a candle in hand as they prayed the Rosary with the Pope, responding to what the Virgin Mary asked of Saint Bernadette: for people to go there in procession.
Pope Leo XIV spoke of that light as a sign of a hope that does not go out even in illness. He addressed the sick above all and left them some words of Saint Paul to reflect upon: “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”
He recalled that in Mary, the Immaculate Conception, “everything begins anew, everything becomes possible once more,” and, citing Saint Bernard, he presented her as a star for those who feel lost: “when you implore her aid, you will never yield to despair.” At the end he prayed that the light each person held in their hand might “never be extinguished” in their lives.
Read the full address here.
Sunday, 27 September: Meeting with the bishops of France
The third day began in Lourdes with a private meeting with the French bishops. Before it began, the Pope stopped before a sculpture depicting a weeping child, a symbol of the victims of abuse.
Pope Leo XIV encouraged the pastors not to yield to discouragement despite the mistakes of the past: “Rise up, then, with hope, and never grow weary of proclaiming the Gospel!” He upheld the Church’s place in public debate — a voice that, “even if it is not always understood,” is “nonetheless needed” — and asked them to defend her freedom to evangelize and educate within France’s particular form of secularity (laïcité).
On the abuse of minors, he thanked the bishops for the measures they have adopted and called for continuing along the path of listening, truth, justice and reparation, “maintaining the greatest vigilance.”
The Pope placed the family at the center of society’s future, recalling that it is within families that we “learn how to live together, respect others … give of ourselves freely.” With that conviction, he closed his message with an explicit wish: that “Jesus may live fully in the families of French Catholics.”
Read the full address here.
Sunday, 27 September: Mass on the Prairie of the Shrine of Lourdes
Some 100,000 faithful, among them many sick people in wheelchairs accompanied by volunteers, filled the Prairie of the Lourdes shrine from dawn, on the banks of the Gave river and facing the grotto, for the Sunday Mass.
In his homily, Pope Leo XIV returned to the heart of the message the Virgin entrusted to Saint Bernadette: conversion. He evoked the triple “Penance!” spoken at Massabielle and explained that penance is “an act of love.”
He also recalled another phrase Mary spoke to Bernadette that unsettles a society centered on well-being: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world but in the next.” In the face of currents that seek to redefine the value of life in illness or old age, he presented Lourdes as the place where “no one is turned away due to their frailty.” He assured the sick that their wheelchairs and hidden tears “are not obstacles,” and that their role in the Church is irreplaceable.
He told all the pilgrims: “You will not leave Lourdes as you arrived. You will leave as missionaries of hope.”
Before the Angelus, he recalled that in that grotto the Virgin appeared with the rosary in her hands, and invited all Christian communities to pray it during the month of October with the intention “that wars may cease and that peace may be established among peoples in conflict.”
Read the full homily here.
Sunday, 27 September: Meeting with the sick of the Accueil Notre-Dame
In the afternoon, Leo XIV went to the Accueil Notre-Dame, a house dedicated to welcoming and caring for sick pilgrims, to share a moment of closeness with them and their companions.
Starting from the scene of the Annunciation (the shrine’s pastoral theme this year) the Pontiff centered his message on Mary’s gaze, which looks upon each human being “as a unique person” and confirms that “no one is invisible in God’s eyes.” On that certainty he grounded the inalienable value of every individual, recalling that the human person is “worthy” “simply by virtue of existing and of being destined for eternity.” He insisted on this point more than once: “Our dignity cannot be measured or debated.”
Aware of situations marked by “terrible pain” at times, he was clear, in the debate on the end of life, in rejecting “the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion,” stressing that “what is legal is not necessarily moral.”
Addressing doctors, nurses, stretcher-bearers and volunteers, he defined the core of their vocation: “to care for a suffering person, not to eliminate that person.” After urging them to develop palliative care and to accompany the sick “with the tenderness that we see here in Lourdes,” he made a firm appeal: “Be passionate servants of life!” He also valued their daily dedication with a reflection that ennobles their work: “In caring for bodies, you also bind up wounded souls.”
To close the meeting, the Pope addressed the sick directly: “You are not a burden. You are the beating heart of our humanity and a precious treasure for the Church.”
Read the full address here.
Saturday, 26 September: Visit to Maison Bakhita
The second day in Paris began at Maison Bakhita, a welcome and integration center for migrants of the Archdiocese of Paris, run by the Scalabrinian Sisters and founded in 2021 in response to Pope Francis’s call to welcome, protect, promote and integrate.
Pope Leo XIV, evoking Saint Josephine Bakhita — the Sudanese slave who gives the house its name — upheld “the fundamental role of women in building a civilization of love.” History, he recalled, is not written by those who impose themselves, but by those who “make room” and build trust.
Against the logic of rich and poor, he proposed another outlook: “No one is so poor as to have nothing to give; no one is so rich as to have nothing to receive.” And he left a certainty: the poor are not a category, but “the very ‘flesh’ of Christ.”
Read the full address here.
Saturday, 26 September: Meeting with the Provincial Synodal Assembly, catechumens and the newly baptized
The second appointment of Saturday took the Pope to the Institut Catholique de Paris, to meet the Provincial Ecclesial Assembly and, above all, those who renew the Church through their decision to be baptized: catechumens who are preparing and the newly baptized.
After listening to the testimonies of Jaodie Josué, Marielle and Sophie, Pope Leo XIV expressed his amazement at “God’s unfathomable work.” In a country as secularized as France, he said, it is paradoxical that a growing number of adults are asking for the sacraments; it is a sign of grace that “far surpasses statistical and sociological analysis” and contradicts every defeatist attitude, including what Pope Francis called “sterile pessimism.”
But he warned against complacency: “we must not become complacent or naively optimistic,” but rather remain committed to concrete pastoral initiatives. He called for a Church in a “state of initiation,” able to accompany those who draw near with “closeness, compassion and tenderness,” respecting each person’s pace and not leaving them alone after baptism, so as to avoid the “post-baptismal emptiness” mentioned in one of the testimonies.
The Pope stressed that these new Christians do not only receive: “Their faith is a treasure offered to the Church in France and to the universal Church.” He illustrated this with Saint Augustine, whose faith was barely a seed when he was baptized and grew into “a tree so large” that even today we find shelter beneath its branches.
The Pope encouraged relying on the saints of France — Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and her “little way” of trust, Saint Martin of Tours and his charity — who remind us that mission is built today, above all, “by remaining faithful to the Lord’s presence in daily life.” And he issued a direct invitation to the new Christians: “In turn, be missionaries of the Gospel in this society!”
Read the full address here.
Saturday, 26 September: Mass with huge crowds at the Place de la Concorde
The largest gathering of the day turned the monumental Place de la Concorde in Paris — between the Tuileries Garden and the Champs-Élysées — into an immense open-air temple before some 700,000 people. Pope Leo XIV built his homily around the Gospel invitation: “If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink,” referring to an existential thirst “for meaning, for truth and fulfilment” in an accelerated world.
During the celebration, the Pontiff explored the experience of inner emptiness that paradoxically returns when we reach our goals or finish our projects. Against “the countless little idols that promise us everything but leave our hearts empty,” he recalled that for God “none of us is merely a number or an entry in a register, but a unique and irreplaceable person.”
Accepting this truth is the first step toward opening oneself to hope: our lives, he said, “are fragile, vulnerable and destined to pass through death; yet they are also wonderful and miraculous, capable of being renewed through our relationships and of opening themselves to true love.” For this reason, he urged families, young people and the newly baptized not to keep their faith in the private sphere, but to let it overflow until it becomes, in a famous image from Origen, “wells, springs and rivers” of fraternity for society.
Read the full homily here.
Saturday, 26 September: Prayer at the grotto of Massabielle, in Lourdes
As evening fell on Saturday, the plane bringing the Pope from Paris landed at 7:00 p.m. at Tarbes-Lourdes airport, and the bells of the Pyrenean city began to ring. On the way to the shrine, Leo XIV stopped to greet people and, from a bridge over the Gave river (renamed the “Leo XIV Bridge” for the occasion), blessed a statue while a choir sang.
The voices singing the “Ave Maria” gave way to silence when the Pontiff knelt before the grotto of Massabielle, the place where in 1858 Saint Bernadette first saw the “lady in white.” Like any pilgrim, he touched the rock of the grotto and drank water from the spring, fulfilling the request the Virgin made to Bernadette: “Go and drink from the spring and wash yourself there.”
He then offered a slow, measured prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes for France. He asked for its people “the gift of fraternal harmony” and a society “that banishes all violence and hatred, and allows everyone to work, to start a family and to live life to the fullest in peace and serenity.” He prayed for leaders who are “wise and generous,” capable of defending human rights and of “rejecting the mentality of war once and for all.”
In the final part, he entrusted to Mary Christian families, vocations and, in a special way, “the sick and suffering” and those who accompany them, who have come to Massabielle to seek strength and healing. After entrusting the deceased to the Virgin, the visit culminated in a gesture of deep veneration reserved for Pontiffs: the offering of a golden rose to Mary.
Read the full prayer here.
Friday, 25 September: Meeting with the authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps (Élysée Palace)
The Pope began his visit to France on Friday at the Élysée Palace, where he was received by the President of the Republic. After a brief private meeting with the President, the Pontiff gave an address in which he reviewed the history and vocation of the French nation, with human dignity as the guiding thread.
In his address, Pope Leo XIV described France as “a cultural, artistic and spiritual beacon,” while highlighting the restoration of Notre-Dame as “a symbol of renewed hope,” proof that “something considered irreparably destroyed can be reborn through mutual cooperation.”
Likewise, turning to the country’s Christian roots and its national motto, he noted that liberty, equality and fraternity “refer to universal ethical imperatives that also find in the Gospel message an inexhaustible source of inspiration and fulfillment.”
The Pontiff devoted a central part of his message to the defense of life. Faced with the tendency to place unlimited expectations in technical progress, he warned against “profit-driven ventures” promoting “genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs or the possibility of arranging one’s own death.” In this context, he reaffirmed that the protection of the right to life “constitutes the indispensable foundation of every other human right,” and called for an authentic secularity that, far from excluding religion from the public sphere, fosters dialogue between the state and the Church “in the service of the common good.”
To close, he made a firm call for peace, urging never to grow resigned to war or to consider it “inevitable.” “Peace is not a balance of power; rather, it is built day by day through dialogue and justice,” he said, entrusting France with the vocation of being “a tireless champion of peace.”
Read the full address here.
Friday, 25 September: Address at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris
Invited by its Director-General, the Holy Father visited UNESCO headquarters to address human dignity, peace and dialogue in the age of artificial intelligence.
During his address, the Pontiff reiterated that he regards the organization as “a privileged partner in the service of the common good,” thus renewing the Holy See’s commitment of nearly 75 years to a space where “humanity can reflect on itself, on its history and on its future.”
In the face of today’s tendency to take many answers for granted, the Pope raised the essential question again: “What does it mean to be human?” In this regard, he recalled that the human condition begins as that of a child, and therefore of a brother or sister. He also stressed our original fragility: we are “poor by birth, in need of bread and words, of care and affection,” defining humanity as “a gift and a trial, a promise and a responsibility.”
From this shared dignity arises a special commitment for those working in education, science and culture, who are called “to care for every person, so that the beauty of our freedom may shine forth.” In this context, he warned of the dehumanizing impact technology can have: artificial intelligence, he noted, “cannot answer questions that concern the meaning of human life.” He therefore stressed the need to protect the youngest, whose vulnerability in the digital environment “must never become an opportunity for exploitation.”
Despite the risks he pointed out, the Pontiff closed with a message of trust. He contrasted the temptation of domination — symbolized by the tower of Babel — with the communion of Pentecost, where each people hears the message of peace in its own language, concluding with a central affirmation: “Every child born into this world brings new hope.”
Read the full address here.
Friday, 25 September: Vespers at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris
After walking two and a half kilometers between Notre-Dame des Champs and the Place Saint-Michel, the Holy Father presided over Vespers in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris before some 8,000 priests, religious and seminarians. Although the event gathered the consecrated community, its message connected directly with the challenges, work and experiences of anyone in daily life.
Evoking the simple act of crossing the cathedral’s threshold, the Pope emphasized that the beauty of the temple speaks “to our restless hearts and calls them to peace.” In a “hyper-connected and noisy society,” he stressed that the sobriety of song and silence in the liturgy can offer anyone a true “oasis of peace” amid everyday bustle.
During his address, the Pontiff insisted that faith is not a refuge in which to entrench oneself in order to flee the problems of the present. Recalling that God sent his Son into a world “already inhabited, already in motion, already marked by both human misery and goodness,” he advocated a community with open doors. In this task, he placed the lay faithful on the front line, describing them as “the living front line of the Church at the crossroads of everyday life”: the classroom, the office, the home or work in the fields.
To sustain that commitment without wearing out, the Holy Father stressed the need to nurture the interior life and friendship with God in prayer. Drawing on the words of the French mystic Madeleine Delbrêl — “Without prayer, we would not love the God of love. We might perhaps be his servants, his warriors, or even his disciples; but we would be neither the loving children of our Father nor the friends… of Jesus Christ” — he warned of the danger of turning faith into mere activism. In the face of the discouragement of an age marked by haste and a lack of certainties, he closed with a clear message: “It is hope that drives us therefore, not resignation.”
Read the full address here.
Friday, 25 September: Prayer vigil with young people (Stade de France)
About 80,000 young people filled the Stade de France in Saint-Denis for a festive prayer vigil that closed the first day of the Pontiff’s visit. The night began with Chloé, a 25-year-old pharmacology student committed to Paris’s working-class neighborhoods, and François, an agronomy student and scout leader from Burgundy. Both raised their doubts about how to pass on the faith without imposing it and how to choose a path in life without becoming discouraged.
The Holy Father listened attentively and put a name to the concerns weighing on this generation: the precariousness of plans, the fragility of relationships, “screen fatigue and anxiety about climate change and the international situation.” Against the pressure of image and performance, he launched a direct criticism of the digital lifestyle that promises fulfillment but leaves isolation, warning of the danger of being pushed “to have everything, but to become no one; to receive countless ‘likes,’ but to remain alone with ourselves.”
For those seeking to discover their vocation, he reminded them that God does not speak in a roundabout way, but “calls each of us by name.” As a compass for discernment, he suggested relying on prayer, help for the most vulnerable and the search for “silence — rare, but necessary, far from the clamor of the media,” encouraging young people to lose their fear of responding generously: “Here I am, Lord!”
In his meditation that followed, the Pope connected with a key idea of French identity: freedom. He defined it not as an abstract concept but as “a living relationship with Jesus” shown in everyday decisions. Along these lines, he proposed a very simple rule for knowing whether a choice is right: “the good gives life; it never takes it away. The good cares for others; it does not take for itself.”
The evening combined prayer with a festive atmosphere that included music, light, performances about the history of the country’s saints, and fireworks. At the center of the stage, the Holy Tunic of Argenteuil was placed alongside a relic of the Cross. The former, venerated since the Middle Ages as the seamless tunic Christ wore during his Passion, was brought to the vigil from the shrine where it usually rests. Before both relics, the Pontiff offered one last image to take home: the tunic that was stripped from Christ and the cross that was laid upon Him are transformed, together, into a sign of hope for anyone who seeks to give deep meaning to their life today.
Read the full address here.
Before the trip: A Guide to Pope Leo XIV's Apostolic Journey to France
This will be Leo XIV's first visit to France since his election, and the first papal visit of this magnitude to the country since Pope Benedict XVI's in 2008. Pope Francis did travel to France (to Strasbourg in 2014, to Marseille in 2023, and to Ajaccio in 2024) but never undertook a national apostolic journey comparable to this one.
- The motto of the trip
- France: between Christian heritage and new momentum
- Paris, a sybolic first stop
- Why is the Pope going to UNESCO?
- Lourdes: Mary, the sick, and those who suffer
- Metz: at the roots of Europe, for peace and unity
- Four days, many faces of France
1. The motto "That the world may have life" (John 6:51)
The motto was chosen to sound a call to hope, to peace, and to the dignity of every human life. Beyond the Catholic faithful, it is addressed to society as a whole, as a summons to solidarity with the most vulnerable.
2. France: between Christian heritage and new momentum
Pope Leo XIV's visit comes at a rather singular moment for France. Catholicism has left a deep imprint on the country's history, landscape, and culture, yet religious practice has fallen off sharply in recent decades, as in so many other European countries. In recent years, however, the French Catholic Church has been witness to a phenomenon that has drawn particular notice: a rapid rise in the number of adults and teenagers requesting baptism. In 2026, more than 13,000 adults and more than 8,000 teenagers (or 21,000 people in total) will be baptized. The number of adults baptized has more than tripled in a decade. This contrast between a deeply secularized society and the emergence of new spiritual searching, especially among the young, forms part of the backdrop to this visit.
3. Paris, a symbolic first stop
The journey will begin on Friday, September 25, in Paris. Pope Leo XIV will first be received at the Élysée by the President of the Republic, before meeting with French authorities, civil society, and the diplomatic corps. He will then go on to UNESCO headquarters, then to Notre-Dame de Paris, and in the evening to Saint-Denis for a vigil with young people. In Saint-Denis, which takes its name from the first bishop of Lutetia (Paris), the Bishop of Rome will meet with the youth. The gathering will take place at the Stade de France, a venue known for sporting events, major concerts, and other large-scale gatherings. The relic of the Holy Tunic of Argenteuil, brought from the basilica of Saint-Denys, will be put on display at the close of the vigil.
The following day he will visit the Maison Bakhita, an initiative of the Diocese of Paris dedicated to welcoming and integrating migrants. Afterward he will meet with catechumens and neophytes at the Institut Catholique de Paris, and will celebrate a large Mass in the Place de la Concorde.
This itinerary reveals the different dimensions of the trip: institutional dialogue, attention to international affairs, and an encounter with the Church in France, young people, new Christians, and those in vulnerable situations.
The stop at Notre-Dame will carry a special resonance. Ravaged by the fire of April 15, 2019 and reopened for worship in December 2024 after five years of restoration, the cathedral is at once a place of faith, a monument of French history, and a symbol known the world over. The pope will preside at Vespers with the bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians, and consecrated persons.
4. Why is the Pope going to UNESCO?
The stop at UNESCO, in the midst of a pastoral journey, may come as a surprise... but it makes more sense once we recall that the Pope is also an interlocutor of the international community. It is hardly surprising, then, that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (headquartered in Paris, with work centered on education, culture, science, heritage, and dialogue among peoples) should wish to receive Leo XIV, through its Director-General. The Holy Father will deliver an address there on September 25, an occasion to touch on several of the central themes of his pontificate: education and the handing on of the faith, peace, dialogue between cultures, and the preservation of heritage.
5. Lourdes: Mary, the sick, and those who suffer
On Saturday afternoon, Leo XIV will arrive in Lourdes, a small town in the Pyrenees that has become one of the world's best-known Marian shrines. It was there, in 1858, that a fourteen-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, said she had seen the Virgin Mary on several occasions in the grotto of Massabielle.
Ever since, millions of pilgrims from around the world have made their way to Lourdes each year to pray, but also to accompany the sick, the disabled, and those in vulnerable circumstances. As one more son of Our Lady, St. Josemaría made several pilgrimages to the grotto of Lourdes.
Leo XIV will go to the grotto as soon as he arrives. On Sunday he will meet with the bishops of France, celebrate Mass on the esplanade of the shrine, meet with the sick and their caregivers, and in the evening take part in one of the most iconic scenes at Lourdes: the torchlight procession. Lourdes thus brings another dimension to the trip: that of vulnerability, prayer, and Christian hope in the midst of suffering.
6. Metz: at the roots of Europe, for peace and unity
The final stage will take Leo XIV to Metz, in eastern France, close to Luxembourg and Germany. This choice of setting gives the last day of the trip a strong European dimension. The Pope will first take part in an interreligious meeting, followed by another titled "At the Roots of Europe, for Peace and Unity."
Metz is also the city where Robert Schuman finished secondary school and where he went on to practice as a lawyer. He later served as French Foreign Minister after the Second World War and became one of the chief architects of European integration. In a region whose history has been marked by Franco-German wars and repeated shifts of borders, to speak of peace, reconciliation, and European unity takes on a particular weight. The trip will close with a Mass at Metz Cathedral, dedicated to St. Stephen, before the Pope's return to Rome.
7. Four days, many faces of France
From the Élysée to the grotto of Massabielle, from UNESCO to the Stade de France, from Notre-Dame de Paris to the city of Robert Schuman, Leo XIV's itinerary traces out the many faces of France today: a Church confronting secularization even as it welcomes a growing number of new believers to the font; a society grappling with the challenges of transmission, migration, and fragility; and, in the end, a country whose history remains deeply bound to that of Europe.