Pope Leo XIV will travel to France for an official state visit from September 25 to 28, the Vatican has announced, and will visit the Paris headquarters of Unesco, which is facing budget shortfalls after the United States withdrew from the agency last year.
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It will be the first papal state visit to France since Benedict XVI came in September 2008.
While Francis visited France three times as pope – to Strasbourg, Marseille and the island of Corsica – those trips were not official state visits by the Holy See.
“We are delighted that His Holiness Pope Leo XIV has confirmed his visit to France. This visit next September will be an honour for our country, a source of joy for Catholics and a great moment of hope for everyone,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X.
French bishops had said earlier this month that the pope was likely to travel to the country in September, including to Paris and Lourdes, the site of a famed Catholic shrine. However, they did not indicate that the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) would be part of the itinerary.
The first American pope, who marked a year leading the 1.4-billion-member Church on 8 May, has been speaking more forcefully, attracting the ire of US President Donald Trump after criticising the Iran war.
Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from Unesco following his return to the White House resulted in a loss of 8 percent of its total budget, the agency has said.
During the trip, Leo is also likely to celebrate mass at the famed Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which reopened in 2024, five years after a devastating fire nearly brought the building to collapse. Unesco designated the cathedral as a prestigious World Heritage site in 1991.
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‘Missionary zeal’
The trip to France will be Leo’s fourth outside Italy this year, following a four-nation Africa tour, a visit to Monaco, and an upcoming trip to Spain in June, where the pope is expected to encourage better treatment of migrants entering Europe.
Leo is expected to meet with Macron during the trip and may also address the French parliament.
A French speaker, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost counts French immigrants to the US among his ancestors.
He had expressed on various occasions “the great esteem in which he holds our country and her spiritual history”, Cardinal Jean-Marc Noël Aveline said earlier this month.
“He is particularly interested in the life of the Church in France, its missionary zeal and also the challenges it faces,” Aveline added.
The pope’s trip comes at a time when the Church has had to grapple with various splits on social, political, ethical and theological issues, with Leo seeking to mediate with both the progressive and traditionalist factions within Catholicism.
Besides the capital, the pontiff will also travel to Lourdes, a site of pilgrimage for Christians worldwide.
The southwestern French town’s important Catholic shrine welcomed Jean-Paul II in 1983 and in 2004, as well as Benedict in 2008. Each time, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered to see the pope, according to the sanctuary.
(with newswires)
