Vatican City – This morning the Holy See Press Office confirmed Pope Leo XIV’s Apostolic Journey to France, which will take place from 25 to 28 September. Accepting the invitation of the Head of State, the ecclesiastical authorities and the Director-General of UNESCO, the Pope will also visit the Organisation’s headquarters. The announcement was received with “great joy” by Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille and President of the Bishops of France, who is currently on pilgrimage in Lourdes with 1,500 faithful from his diocese. “We hoped for it, we were waiting for it,” the cardinal said, noting that, from the time of the Pope’s election, his personal “interest and attachment” to France, its history and the figures of holiness who have flourished there had already become apparent.
A Church between renewal and challenges
Cardinal Aveline described a French Church experiencing “very contrasting and, at the same time, very beautiful realities”. On the one hand, there are clear signs of rebirth: a growing number of young people discovering Christ and asking for Baptism or Confirmation, an increase in catechumens, the flourishing of pilgrimages and the renewed importance of Marian shrines. Among the pilgrims in Lourdes, he said, many are young adults taking part in their first pilgrimage. On the other hand, delicate issues remain: ageing communities in rural areas and the wound of the abuse crisis, including sexual abuse, within the Church. It is a crisis which, according to the archbishop, has been addressed but “is not over”: there is “still much work to be done, much respect to be shown”. The visit of the Successor of Peter is being seen as an encouragement to continue along this path and as a grace to be received by preparing hearts to listen.
The UNESCO stop and the message to Europe
Particular importance is attached to the planned meeting at UNESCO headquarters. The cardinal linked it to the themes of the relationship between faith and reason - already at the centre of Benedict XVI’s journey to France in 2008 - and to the French Church’s three-year commitment to education, understood as a field of open engagement also with those who do not share the Christian faith. Finally, there is the gaze turned towards Europe. In a continent marked by fragmentation and the multiplication of wars, Aveline recalled the experience of post-war reconciliation and the Christian intuition of figures such as De Gasperi, Adenauer and Schuman. It is an inheritance to be valued, he observed, so that Europe’s witness to the power of reconciliation may today become a vector of peace for the whole world.
An invitation also coming from the State
It is worth underlining that the invitation to the Pope came not only from the French Church, but also from the highest authorities of the State. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, invited the Pope to visit France, and Leo XIV accepted. This is no minor detail, considering that in recent months certain self-styled insiders had fuelled rumours of tense relations between the Holy Father and the Élysée, even suggesting that the President did not intend to receive him. Reality, which contradicts these social media disinformers, tells the exact opposite story: relations are good, and the Pope has accepted the invitation to visit UNESCO headquarters as well. This journey fits into a trajectory that is progressively bringing Europe back to the centre of the Pope’s attention: after Munich, and with Spain expected in June, it is now France’s turn. This return is no coincidence. Europe is once again becoming a privileged destination for apostolic journeys for a precise reason: today it is a terrain that calls for a new evangelisation. Lands that once appeared to be places of ancient Christendom are, in reality, the true peripheries to be reached and to which the Gospel must once again be proclaimed.
fr.V.B.
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