Pope Leo XIV tastes French students’ ‘St. Thérèse cake’
Students from Sainte Thérèse de La Guerche high school in Brittany were thrilled after Pope Leo XIV tasted their St. Thérèse cake in Paris on Sept. 26. The heart-shaped cake, created 20 years ago by teacher Hubert Delorme, is decorated with rose petals and reflects themes associated with St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Six Catholic students prepared the cake and delivered it to the Vatican nunciature in Paris, where Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Celestino Migliore warmly welcomed them. The students saw the delivery as an opportunity to bear witness to their faith; their school trains students for hospitality and restaurant careers.
about 7 hours ago
Pope Leo XIV tasted a cake made by six students from a hospitality-focused Catholic high school in Brittany during his visit to Paris. The students said the cake’s design honors St. Thérèse of Lisieux and described delivering it to the papal nunciature as a memorable opportunity to express their faith.
Students from Sainte Thérèse de La Guerche prepared the cake on Sept. 23 and brought it to the Vatican nunciature in Paris the following morning. Leo tasted it on Sept. 26, before celebrating Mass at Place de la Concorde.
The school’s assistant principal, Vanessa Piquet, said the students were proud the cake had reached the pope. She said its heart shape represents the love central to St. Thérèse’s message—love of God and others—while its rose-petal decoration recalls the “shower of roses” associated with the saint.
Founded in 1990 and named for St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the school trains students for careers in hospitality and the restaurant industry. Piquet said many students at the school are not baptized or practicing Catholics, while the six who made the cake were committed Catholics involved in pastoral activities.
Teacher Hubert Delorme, who devised the recipe 20 years ago, accompanied the students. He said the idea of presenting the cake to the pope followed a chance conversation with Rennes Archbishop Pierre Paul Oscar d’Ornellas at a pilgrimage in Brittany; after Delorme sent a letter, the proposal was accepted.
The cake is sold at one pastry shop in Lisieux. Its ingredients include exotic-fruit compote made with papaya, mango and pineapple, passion-fruit juice, shortcrust pastry, Bavarian cream and vanilla cream.
Piquet said the students spoke emotionally about the experience after returning to school, and that the visit to the nunciature—where Archbishop Celestino Migliore welcomed them—made a strong impression.
Material culture mediates Catholic devotion and public witness
Material culture—images, medals, relics, churches, processions, and other visible objects and practices—can make Catholic devotion tangible and carry it into public life. It mediates devotion not as a substitute for faith, but as a bodily and cultural expression that can direct people toward Christ and the mysteries of the faith.
Sacred images, for example, help the faithful encounter Christian mysteries through artistic and culturally recognizable forms. The honor shown to an image is directed to the person represented, not to the material object itself. That distinction is central: Catholic veneration is not worship of wood, paint, or stone.
Material practices also give the heart an outward language. Pilgrims touch or kiss images and relics, carry statues in procession, light candles, or wear medals. Such gestures can express faith and commitment, but without an interior disposition they risk becoming empty custom or superstition. They therefore need sound catechesis and pastoral guidance.
Because devotion is embodied in particular cultures, it works in two directions: the Gospel takes up and transforms cultural forms, while the Church receives and integrates what can serve the faith. Popular devotions can thus bring prayer into ordinary life and help the faith take root in a people’s culture. But they must be purified of elements incompatible with Catholic faith and remain properly ordered to the liturgy, which is the Church’s central public worship and cannot be replaced by devotional practices.
This material dimension also makes devotion publicly visible. A procession, shrine, pilgrimage, or image displayed in a church can draw attention and invite people to consider the faith. Such visibility is a form of public witness, though its deepest credibility depends not on spectacle alone but on lives shaped by the Gospel. The Church’s tangible presence in public settings can help bring people into contact with Christ’s message.
So material culture mediates Catholic devotion by giving faith visible, shared, and culturally rooted forms. Its purpose is not to stop at the object or gesture, but to lead beyond them—to prayer, conversion, communion with the Church, and witness to Christ.