12 things to know ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s trip to France
Pope Leo XIV will visit Paris, Lourdes, and Metz from Sept. 25–28, meeting young people, government officials, the sick, and migrants. The trip will make Leo the third reigning pope to visit both Paris and Lourdes, after John Paul II and Benedict XVI. In Paris, Leo will lead vespers at Notre-Dame, the first papal liturgy there since the cathedral’s 2019 fire, and celebrate Mass at Place de la Concorde. More than 80,000 young people are expected at a prayer vigil at Stade de France, where a relic believed to be Christ’s tunic will be displayed before the pope for the first time.
6 days ago
Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to visit Paris, Lourdes, and Metz from Sept. 25–28, meeting young people, public officials, sick people, and migrants. The program combines public events and prayer with themes including immigration, artificial intelligence, and the Catholic Church in France.
In Paris, Leo is due to pray solemn vespers with clergy, religious, and seminarians at Notre-Dame Cathedral—the first papal liturgy there since the 2019 fire and the cathedral’s restoration. He is also scheduled to celebrate Mass at Place de la Concorde, a square associated with both the French Revolution and later efforts at national reconciliation.
More than 80,000 young people have registered for a prayer vigil with the pope at Stade de France on Sept. 25. At the event’s conclusion, the Holy Tunic—a relic believed to be the garment Christ wore during his Passion and kept at the Basilica of Saint-Denis—is to be displayed before a pope for the first time.
On Sept. 26, Leo is expected to pray at the Grotto of Massabielle, where, according to Catholic tradition, Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858. His Lourdes program also includes a rosary and torchlight procession, Mass in the sanctuary’s meadow, and a visit with sick and disabled pilgrims and those who care for them.
A prayer published ahead of the visit asks Mary to intercede for France, its leaders, and its people. It calls for social harmony, support for the poor, peace among nations, renewed faith among Christian families, and strength and healing for the sick and suffering. 2
The sanctuary has received more than 200 million pilgrims since Bernadette’s reported visions; of more than 7,000 claimed cures, 72 have been officially recognized by the Church as medically inexplicable miracles.
Leo will be the third reigning pope, after John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to visit both Paris and Lourdes; Pope Francis visited other French cities but not either destination. Benedict spent four days in Lourdes in 2008, marking the 150th anniversary of the apparitions.
France’s Catholic heritage also includes the baptism of Frankish king Clovis I around A.D. 496, the event associated with the country’s traditional title as the “Eldest Daughter of the Church.” From 1309 to 1377, seven successive popes governed the Church from Avignon before Gregory XI returned to Rome.
Other French religious landmarks include the Paris chapel where Mary is said to have revealed the Miraculous Medal to St. Catherine Labouré in 1830, and the birthplace of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whom John Paul II proclaimed a doctor of the Church in 1997. The article also notes the country’s monastic traditions, including Carthusian monks’ production of Chartreuse and Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon’s contributions to the development of champagne-making.
Leo speaks French and is expected to address people in the language during the trip. His schedule includes time with young people and religious communities, alongside encounters with government officials, migrants, and people who are ill or disabled.*
Marian pilgrimage fosters conversion and communal hope
A Marian pilgrimage can foster both personal conversion and communal hope, but the two belong together: pilgrims are called not only to return to God themselves, but also to carry renewed faith into shared life.
The Church’s Directory on Popular Piety describes pilgrimage as a penitential journey: setting out for a shrine can help pilgrims recognize sin and attachments, seek interior freedom, and return intending to amend their lives and order them more closely to God. A pilgrimage is therefore not simply travel, religious tourism, or an emotional high; its spiritual fruit is measured partly by what changes afterward.
The Directory also notes that a shrine visit is often an occasion for the Sacrament of Penance. Pope Pius XII likewise cautioned that a few days of pilgrimage are not usually enough by themselves to produce lasting conversion, and stressed preparation and follow-up. That provides a practical standard for assessing a report about a pilgrimage: does it describe ongoing prayer, reconciliation, renewed Christian conduct, or service after people return home? The headline alone does not establish those details.
Pilgrimage also makes hope visible in a communal form. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith presents the journey as a sign of faith and hope, and arrival as an encounter marked by love; walking together can make believers more conscious of themselves as brothers and sisters journeying toward God.
Pope Francis develops this social dimension in his account of the Marian shrine at Şumuleu-Ciuc: pilgrimage can help people recognize a shared identity, strengthen fraternity, and seek to transform resentment and mistrust into fellowship. Mary’s role in this account is not to replace Christ but to lead pilgrims to him and encourage them not to surrender fraternal love to division. This is a substantial meaning of “communal hope”: not optimism that every difficulty will disappear, but a willingness to pursue reconciliation and solidarity despite a painful past.
Marian devotion is properly Christ-centred. Francis says that at the shrine Mary brings the faithful to Jesus, while John Paul II describes her as a sign of hope for the pilgrim people and says that Marian pilgrimage should strengthen people to live the Gospel in everyday life, not draw them away from their ordinary responsibilities.
That also means the pilgrimage’s communal fruits should extend beyond the shrine. John Paul II notes that Marian shrines can serve evangelization and inspire apostolate, care for the poor, and works of mercy. A claim that a pilgrimage “fosters conversion and communal hope” is therefore consonant with Catholic teaching when it refers to a Christ-directed renewal that bears fruit in daily discipleship and greater solidarity. The headline supplies no details about a particular pilgrimage’s participants or outcomes, so whether those fruits occurred in this case remains unclear.