The French Bishops' Conference said Wednesday that "the Catholic Church in France is preparing to welcome Leo XIV," saying the apostolic trip "could take place at the end of September." The Vatican has not yet officially announced this trip.

Published on: 06/05/2026 - 18:27Modified on: 06/05/2026 - 19:13

The prospect of a trip by Pope Leo XIV to France is becoming clearer, while his predecessor, Francis, had always refused to pay a state visit to the "eldest daughter of the Church".

“The Catholic Church in France is preparing to welcome Leo The official announcement coming from the Vatican, the text keeps a strict conditional on the form: the apostolic journey "could take place at the end of September".

But the president of the CEF, Jean-Marc Aveline, ardent promoter of a visit by the sovereign pontiff, immediately gives details which leave little room for doubt: "I had several working times with the pope, including one last week, during which we developed a draft program", he affirms.

This “planned program” provides for stages “in Paris and Lourdes”, that is to say in the capital home to Notre-Dame Cathedral, and in one of the main Catholic pilgrimage sites.

Lourdes welcomed Pope John Paul II in 1983 and 2004, then Benedict XVI in 2008. Each time, hundreds of thousands of people made the trip, according to the sanctuary.

The press release recalls that Cardinal Aveline officially invited Leo XIV and that this invitation "was supported by the President of the Republic" Emmanuel Macron during his meeting with Leo XIV at the Vatican on April 10.

This trip would be, according to the Pope's current agenda, his fifth international trip, after trips to Turkey and Lebanon, Monaco, Africa and Spain.

“Share with the Pope what our Church is experiencing in France”

Since his election in May 2025, the French episcopate had eagerly hoped to welcome a trip by this new pope. “We must prepare our hearts to soon welcome his visit,” Cardinal Aveline cryptically asserted in April. His coming “would be an opportunity to share with the Pope what our Church is experiencing in France and to let ourselves be encouraged by his words,” he explained on Wednesday.

Is the dynamic that the Church of France prides itself on – in a Catholic landscape in crisis in Europe – one of the arguments that convinced the Vatican? This year again, requests for adult and adolescent baptisms increased sharply, to more than 21,000 in total.

Francophile, capable of reading speeches in French but less comfortable speaking it, Leo XIV "expressed, on different occasions, the great esteem he has for our country and its spiritual history", underlines Cardinal Aveline.

After his election, some even found French origins in Léon XIV, born in Chicago in 1955 under the name Robert Francis Prevost (his father being of French and Italian origins and his mother having Spanish roots).

Not enough to motivate a trip, estimated the experts, who nevertheless stressed that this new pope could give another twist to relations with France, particularly on the delicate subject of secularism. “This pope has international experience, he comes from the Western world, so the theme of secularization is not foreign to him,” François Mabille, director of the Geopolitical Observatory of Religion, told AFP.

In 12 years of pontificate, Pope Francis had made three trips to France: to Strasbourg in 2014, to Marseille in 2023 and to Corsica in December 2024, making France the country he visited the most. But, paradoxically, he never agreed to make an official state visit there, insisting that he was visiting European institutions (in Strasbourg) or participating in the Mediterranean Meetings (in Marseille).

He even refused to attend the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral at the end of 2024, five years after the devastating fire.

On several occasions, Pope Francis had also strongly criticized the inclusion of voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) in the French Constitution or the presidential project to establish active assistance in dying in France – even if Emmanuel Macron has always avoided using the words "euthanasia" and "assisted suicide".

With AFP

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