Pope Leo XIV has drawn worldwide attention for packing the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris with 800,000 souls for Holy Mass at the Place de la Concorde and bringing out scores of young people for a prayer vigil at the Stade de France.
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His apostolic journey to France has been, in short, a smashing success. The pope has elicited enthusiasm for the Catholic faith in a country where the Church is in grave peril: only 2 percent of Catholics attend Mass every Sunday, according to a 2025 survey. (READ MORE: Pope Leo XIV, Louis XVI, and the Catholic Faith That Wouldn’t Die)
Pope Leo, in his breakneck tour, offered the message that it is precisely where evil dominates and all hope seems lost that the Lord’s presence shines.
“In the night the light shines all the more brightly,” he said at the Stade de France. “Thus, dear young people, we have heard together the words of Saint Paul [2 Corinthians 12:10: “for when I am weak, then I am strong”]. We want to hold them high, like a torch that illumines not only our prayers, but the whole history of the Church. The Apostle views his own time and receives divine inspiration, that is, the Holy Spirit, who always opens up bright prospects for the future. Yes, God is the Lord of history, and no matter what happens, he guides its course toward salvation. In Christ, every evil comes to an end, precisely because that end becomes the beginning of a new and eternal life.”
Pope Leo gave much attention during his apostolic journey to the evils that have taken over France: abortion and euthanasia. Last month, euthanasia was legalized in France after years of public debate.
“[I]t is precisely in the name of this inalienable dignity of the human person that we must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion,” the pope said at Lourdes, a pilgrimage destination of healing where the Virgin Mary appeared in 1858. Pope Leo said that no one has the right “to decide the life of a given embryo or elderly person.” (RELATED: First Toddler Euthanized in the Netherlands)
And while speaking at the Robert Schuman Conference Centre in Metz on Monday, the pope told young people: “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.”
Pope Leo offered an alternative to the secularism and materialism that have taken over France: a relationship with Christ.
“Whoever lives with God is free from everything that darkens life, rendering it empty and meaningless…. Here, then, is the source of true freedom: a living relationship with Jesus.”
The Lord’s presence, he said, “mak[es] us protagonists of a story that moves from confusion to the pursuit of truth, and from indifference to a commitment to justice.”
People should shun “pride, vanity, violence and greed” in favor of striving for “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness” and then fight with the “weapon” of “self-giving love” against “forces that oppose our relationship with God,” Pope Leo counseled.
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The pope also had a message regarding artificial intelligence.
“Our ideas and relationships risk being impoverished by a process of dehumanization,” he said in a speech at UNESCO’s headquarters. “The paradox has become increasingly evident: while ‘intelligence’ is attributed to computational systems, we struggle to recognize the inalienable dignity of human persons, whose lives are judged according to the criterion of efficiency and, when deemed no longer productive, are rejected and discarded.” (RELATED: Disembodied Autonomy)
“If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a ‘paradise of machines’ invading and conditioning our daily lives,” he said while addressing French authorities, “there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good.”
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In France, adult Baptisms have risen considerably in recent years, rising from 4,278 in 2022 to an expected 13,234 in 2026, according to the French Bishops’ Conference.
The pope said during a meeting with France’s synodal assembly that he is “struck by the number of people returning to the threshold of the faith, and by the many adults seeking the sacraments of Christian initiation.” (RELATED: Pope Leo XIV, Louis XVI, and the Catholic Faith That Wouldn’t Die)
This phenomenon may seem “paradoxical” in contemporary France, he said, but it should be recognized as “a tangible sign of the action of God’s grace” that “contradicts every defeatist attitude.”
“[W]e must recognize, welcome, and protect the small flame that the Holy Spirit has kindled in the darkness of the night,” the pope said, “the tiny seed that strives to grow even amid the thorns.”
In a meeting with the country’s bishops, the pope was clear that there is only one possible way to bring France back to the Church from its fall into secularism. “To renew hope and give fresh impetus to the Church’s mission in France, which I earnestly desire, there is only one ‘roadmap,’ which is always the same: to make Jesus Christ known and loved, authentically, passionately, again and again,” he said.
The popular reception to his trip suggests there is more hope that this roadmap will succeed than is conventionally thought.
An X post that attained nearly a million views displays a video of Pope Leo going down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in his popemobile, to the enthusiastic reaction of the enormous crowd. The post is captioned: “They thought they had banished the Catholic Faith from France🇫🇷, they mocked Jesus’ Last Supper at the Olympic Games, yet Catholic France has stepped forward to reclaim its place in history, the Church’s eldest daughter returns home!”
At the conclusion of Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Stephen in Metz Monday, the pope was visibly holding back tears, touched by the outpouring his trip received in secular France, and presumably hoping that this “tiny seed” of the Church in France indeed has a chance.
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