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.