Leo XIV in France: Which Christianity Is the Vatican Now Promoting?

Pope Leo XIV’s journey to France, from September 25 to 28, was received by the media and the world at large as a major pastoral success. The press, both French and international, particularly highlighted the intense popular participation in Paris and Lourdes: exceptional numbers for a strongly secularized country with a very strong Islamic presence.

Although the absolute record for a papal celebration in France was not surpassed (the previous highest figure was presumably recorded at the 1997 World Youth Day), the reception was very warm and exceeded initial expectations: in Paris, approximately 300,000 people followed the Pope’s route from UNESCO to Notre-Dame; the September 26 Mass in Place de la Concorde, on the Champs-Élysées and in the surrounding areas brought together approximately 800,000 people; in Lourdes, at the September 27 Mass, approximately 150,000 faithful were present. The vigil with young people at the Stade de France also recorded very strong demand: the program was sold out and expectations had been considered exceptional even before the Pope’s arrival.

Let us nevertheless go beyond the media reception and try to understand what should be more important in a Vatican analysis: what was the purpose of Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic journey to France, what message was conveyed, and how does this message fit into the broader agenda of Prevost’s apostolic journeys and within the theological framework of reference for this Pontificate.

A Common Thread Running Through the Apostolic Journeys

Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic journey to France does not, in fact, constitute an isolated episode (apostolic journeys should never be read in this sense), but fits into a precise and systematic geopolitical and pastoral trajectory already traced by the previous international stages of the pontificate, particularly in Turkey and Lebanon (November 27 – December 2, 2025), in Algeria (April 13-15, 2026), and in Spain (June 6-12, 2026).

Let us recall how, during the press conference on the flight from Istanbul to Beirut (November 30, 2025), the Pontiff described Muslim-majority Turkey as a model of coexistence and an example of interreligious harmony for the entire world. This narrative contrasted with reality: as highlighted by reports from the European Centre for Law & Justice (ECLJ), Turkey has almost eradicated its Christian presence, institutionally discriminates against Churches, privileges Sunni Islam, and restricts Christian activities. It is therefore surprising that it was presented as a model rather than Lebanon, historically founded on an authentic multiconfessional balance.

The same dissociation between language and factual evidence was repeated in Spring 2026 during the journey to Algeria. During his visit to the Great Mosque of Algiers – defined by Leo as “space proper to God” – the Pontiff spoke on social media of a purported “communion” between Christians and Muslims experienced “under the mantle of Our Lady of Africa.” Algeria is among the nations with the highest rates of persecution of Christians: conversion to Christianity is prosecuted criminally, and the laws of 2006 and 2012 make the opening of new churches virtually impossible and prohibit proselytism (to the satisfaction of Francis and Leo XIV).

During the journey to Spain in June 2026 the dominant theme was, ça va sans dire, the uncompromising defense of welcoming migratory flows elevated to the supreme criterion of evangelical authenticity: a true dogma of the synodal Church at the expense of the moral asymmetry that arises in relation to host communities and the duties of prudence, security, social cohesion, ethno-demographic continuity, and protection of the common good.

Just over a month after Leo’s journey to Spain, between July 30 and 31, the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in Morocco was invaded by a horde of migrants, among them former prisoners who received amnesty on the occasion of the concurrent birthday of Moroccan King Mohammed VI.

During the apostolic journey to France, these three major themes – the primacy of welcoming migrants, a Church at the service of multilateralism, and the “double standard” of parrhesia toward the potentates of this world – returned consistently.

With regard to the immigrationist dogma, Leo’s visit to the Maison Bakhita integration center in Paris and the repeated references contained in his speeches at the Élysée, UNESCO, and Metz reaffirmed that so-called “integration of the migrant”—whatever this means—must take place “as if they were part of one’s own family.”

In contrast to the diplomacy of extreme caution or even silence adopted, as we have seen, toward authoritarian regimes or predominantly Islamic-socialist contexts (such as Turkey, Algeria, or China, where the Holy See maintains complete diplomatic discretion concerning violations of religious freedom and human rights), toward Western democracies and secular institutions the Pope exercises direct parrhesia. In France, in fact, Leo XIV firmly condemned legislative developments concerning euthanasia, surrogacy, abortion, and genetic manipulation, once again highlighting the marked disparity in the exercise of moral denunciation depending on the geopolitical interlocutor.

The culmination of this continuity finally manifested itself in Metz (September 28), on the occasion of the Interreligious Meeting and the signing of the Appel de Metz (“Metz Appeal”). By defining religions—all of them—as a “privileged path” toward peace and inviting the various faiths to unite to serve humanity, the Holy See did nothing other than translate the geopolitical theory of multilateralism into the theological-spiritual sphere.

From this perspective, peace among nations (as already seen in other analyses) becomes the primary end of religions, especially of the “Catholic” one, with the consequent reduction of them to mere ethical forces at the service of stability and world order.

The Threefold Theological Framework

The rhetorical framework of the speeches delivered by Pope Leo XIV during his journey to France – including the appeals for Europe’s spiritual awakening and for the protection of nascent and terminal life – is based on a clear doctrinal and moral structure built in the post-Council period and consolidated under Bergoglio’s pontificate, whose fundamental lines are found in the Declaration Dignitas infinita (with regard to the anthropological dimension), the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (with regard to the doctrinal dimension), and the Consistent Life Ethic (with regard to the moral dimension) developed by Cardinal Bernardin and to which Prevost – by his own admission – adheres.

The anthropology invoked by Leo XIV is founded on the notion of man’s infinite dignity. This concept obviously contradicts Catholic Tradition, since it attributes to the creature a character proper to God – an ontologically infinite dignity – attenuating or even denying the reality of original sin and consequently denying or diminishing, in other terms, the necessity of Redemption. Moreover, by eliminating the distinction between natural and supernatural dignity, this concept, actually of Masonic origin, favors an anthropocentric vision that can only relativize the role of Grace and the Sacraments, placing man at the center rather than God. We must not forget that Dignitas infinita is the most important document – because foundational – of Bergoglian magisterium.

From a more doctrinal point of view, the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas marked a decisive shift of emphasis from supernatural Redemption to the historical realization of man. Christ emerges there above all as an excellent model of humanity, grace is reduced to an external aid accompanying man on his journey, humanity as a collective is pointed to as the “way, truth and life,” while the mission of the Church tends to become identified with the construction of a more just and peaceful earthly order.

On the political level, the encyclical elevated multipolarism (or multilateralism) and the culture of negotiation to fundamental principles of ecclesial action. In this way, Magnifica Humanitas inherits and consecrates the line of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik inaugurated by Casaroli: dialogue and cooperation with political powers become the privileged horizon of the Church’s action, with the result of progressively subordinating her supernatural mission to an ethical and diplomatic function at the service of the international order promoted by globalist institutions.

An interesting coincidence worth highlighting: while Leo XIV was in France, Secretary of State Pietro Parolin – the real mind behind this “consecration” of Ostpolitik – went, on September 26, to the 81st Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, and spoke, extensively citing precisely Magnifica Humanitas and presenting multilateralism and negotiation at all costs as Leo XIV’s own vision.

Leo XIV’s positions on bioethical and social matters are understood in light of the Consistent Life Ethic, according to which all issues concerning human life belong to a single moral horizon. This approach, however, tends to dissolve the traditional hierarchy of ethical questions, placing intrinsic evils such as abortion and euthanasia, which admit no exceptions, on the same level as prudential matters such as immigration, war, or social policies, which instead depend on contingent assessments.

Applying the Consistent Life Ethic, Leo XIV condemns euthanasia and abortion (expressed, for example, at the Élysée and in Lourdes), but they are always inserted into the same pot of the so-called “wars that humanity wages against itself.” The effect of this leveling is also the weakening of the specificity of the bioethical battle that we are actually witnessing in these months and years.

The Contradictions of the Journey: Return to the Christian Roots, but Also to the “Values” of the French Revolution

The highest point of the apostolic journey to France took place on September 28 in Metz, during a double event that graphically synthesized the profound contradiction: on the one hand, the interreligious meeting; on the other, the conference entitled “At the Roots of Europe for Peace and Unity,” attended also by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Already during the visit to the Élysée and the address at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Leo XIV had shown a tendency to reconcile the Catholic Magisterium with nothing less than the legacy of the Enlightenment and, in particular, the Revolution of 1789.

In his address before the civil authorities, the Pope defined the motto of the French Republic – Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité – as a combination of “universal ethical imperatives that also find in the Gospel message an inexhaustible source of inspiration and fulfillment.” In practice, they were elevated to the status of natural values and rights. As if that were not enough, he cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 as a “real milestone on the path of the moral progress of humanity,” quoting John Paul II.

This conceptual operation presents marked and obvious critical issues: not only because presenting the principles of 1789 almost as a natural derivation of the Gospel means engaging in a grave historical amnesia concerning the ideological, secularist, and violently persecutory matrix of the French Revolution against the Catholic Church, but also because elevating pseudo-rights drafted by secular organizations to the status of supreme moral criterion overturns the classical approach, and international rights charters end up becoming a secularized Decalogue to which the Church asks for legitimacy, rather than evaluating civil laws in the light of divine law.

The contradiction reached its culmination in Metz. In his speech on the roots of Europe, the Pope recalled the figures of the so-called Founding Fathers of the European Union, namely the Christian Democrats Robert Schuman and Alcide De Gasperi, and even poor Saint Benedict of Nursia, acknowledging that European civilization is incomprehensible without Christianity.

However, it is legitimate to ask which conception of Christianity he was referring to, given that, only a few hours earlier, in the same “Robert Schuman” Congress Center, the Pontiff attended and endorsed the signing of the Metz Appeal.

This document – signed by Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline (President of the French Bishops’ Conference) together with Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Protestant, and Orthodox leaders – states verbatim that “religions are a privileged path toward that disarmed and disarming peace to which His Holiness Pope Leo XIV calls us.”

If all religions are indiscriminately a “privileged path” to peace and the (entirely earthly) salvation of humanity, the reference to Europe’s “Christian roots” is emptied of any normative and soteriological value, being reduced to mere historical memory or folkloric color. Why not replace it with Islam or Judaism? After all, all religions serve man!

Traditional Catholic doctrine teaches that true peace, the tranquility of order, is not the result of a pluralist compromise or an ethical convergence among coexisting religions, but the fruit of the authentic conversion of nations to Christ the King. To affirm that interreligious dialogue is a path to peace means placing geopolitical stability as the ultimate end of religions, subordinating revealed Truth to sociological utility.

From an overall analysis of the speeches, it emerges that when Leo XIV speaks of Christianity he does not refer to dogmatic and traditional Catholicism, the Catholicism that formed France as the “Eldest Daughter of the Church,” founded on the social kingship of Christ, on spiritual combat against sin, on the centrality of the Sacraments, and which, when necessary, repelled with the sword hordes of invaders who sought to turn Europe into a powder keg.

On the contrary, the Vatican rhetoric proposes a desacralized, immanent, and synodal Christianity, reduced to a soft power in the hands of United Nations and the European Union, whose primary mission is no longer the conversion and eternal salvation of souls.

An Unexpected Paradox

While interreligious dialogue and universal brotherhood were being celebrated in Metz, a sociological and theological paradox of extraordinary significance nevertheless emerged, moreover from a completely unexpected point of view.

On September 25, an important French Islamic apologetics group called Miséricorde pour l’Humanité (“Mercy for Humanity”), whose particular target is the conversion of traditionalist Catholics, published a series of messages on X expressing profound concern over the success of the papal journey in France, in the face of the imposing turnout and enthusiasm generated by the papal events in Paris, where thousands of young faithful singing the Salve Regina in Latin demonstrated the vitality of a Catholicism that is far from extinct.

The Muslim apologist made an explicit prediction: “Within 45 years France will once again be Catholic, and all that will remain for us will be tears.” What makes this analysis extremely illuminating is the diagnosis offered by the Islamic apologist regarding the factors behind this predicted re-Christianization of France.

As a completely external observer, he notes how the French religious dynamic shows that ecclesial progressivism – which has done so much to promote the Islamization of France – now belongs to a declining era.

The vital forces of the Church, by contrast, are concentrated in the sectors most faithful to Tradition, which attract an increasing number of young people, priestly vocations, and adult conversions – the catechumens and neophytes whom the Pontiff himself met at the Institut Catholique.

In a further, even more interesting passage, this Islamic apologist even admits that the principal conceptual obstacle preventing many French Muslims from embracing the Catholic faith lies in the contradiction between the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on religious freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) and the perennial and traditional teaching that preceded it. Let us repeat: it is not a traditional and “backwardist” Catholic who points this out, but one of the sharpest Islamic intellectuals in France!

This episode reveals the irony of today’s ecclesial condition: while the Vatican hierarchy devotes its energies to promoting a multilateral, interreligious agenda instrumental to the powers of this world, the theological adversaries of Catholicism who are most influential in Europe at this historical moment, namely Muslims, identify the true point of strength and the only real threat to their conquest and hegemony not in the “Christianity of dialogue,” but in the re-emergence of identity-based, dogmatic, and Traditional Catholicism.

Apparently, Leo is a joke.
Even the muslims are laughing at him.
So sad.
The Catholic church, or what’s left of it, needs to purge itself…..starting from the top down.
It’s not the church I used to go to.
Neither is the Lutheran church.

When a Pope speaks to secular world leaders, he points out where their own secular ideals (like freedom, equality, and human rights) actually come from—Christianity. Showing that secular ideals only find true fulfillment in the Gospel is a classic method of evangelization, not "surrendering divine law".

Popes cite human rights charters precisely to hold secular governments accountable to their own laws—using those standards to condemn real-world atrocities like abortion, euthanasia, persecution, and total state control.

Doc, it sounds like you left because you were looking for a Church made of perfect humans rather than a Church founded by Christ for sinners.

Christ never promised a Church free of bad leaders, confusing politics, or public mockery—in fact, He explicitly warned that the Church would contain both wheat and weeds until the harvest (Matthew 13).

If you walk away from the Sacraments and the Truth because of the fallibility of men at the top, you aren’t punishing the leaders—you are just depriving yourself of Christ. The Church isn’t a museum for saints or a political party to be purged; it’s a hospital for sinners.

The Church’s validity rests on Christ’s promise, not on the popularity or perfection of its leaders. If you only stay in the Church when its leadership is flawless and popular, you’ll never stay anywhere. The Church doesn’t need a corporate purge to be the true Church; it needs Catholics who care more about Christ and the Sacraments than the headlines of the day.

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