How France Handles Its Strict Secularism as It Prepares for a Papal Visit
The visit includes popemobile parades and an open-air Mass that could draw hundreds of thousands, highlighting tensions over public religion in a secular state.
- Pope Leo XIV begins a four-day visit to France on Friday, featuring large public gatherings and an open-air Mass in Paris that tests the nation's strict approach to secularism, known as laïcité.
- France's Constitution defines the nation as a secular Republic, with a historic 1905 law established to distance the state from the Catholic Church while mandating state neutrality toward all religions.
- Critics argue that holding Saturday's Mass at Concorde and along the Champs-Élysées, near the National Assembly and the Elysee Palace, grants the Catholic Church exceptional visibility that could undermine the state's secular position.
- French President Macron will receive the Pope at the Elysee Palace on Friday as two heads of state, while the government provides and finances security for the religious event.
- In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass before about 260,000 people at Les Invalides, and surveys from 2019 and 2020 found Catholicism represented 29% of France's population, providing context for the visit's scale.
12 Articles
12 Articles
The Toronto Star
How France handles its strict secularism as it prepares for a papal visit
PARIS (AP) — A four-day visit by Pope Leo XIV beginning Friday that will feature large public gatherings, popemobile parades and an open-air Mass in Paris presents France with a
Pope Leo XIV, in France, will bring Catholic social teaching to a secular Europe
During his Sept. 25–28 visit to Paris, Lourdes, and Metz, Leo’s approach to sharing the Catholic Church’s teaching on political and social issues will be highly watched. [...]
Robert F Prévost, the American Pope (Wikimedia Commons) In Paris, Lourdes and Metz: Pope Leo XIV will make three stages in France from 25 to 28 September 2026. The Supreme Pontiff will invite the French to return to their spiritual and humanist heritage. Read more Pope Leo XIV in France: towards reconciliation with the "senior daughter of the Church" ? appeared first on Infodujour.fr.
Pope Leo, in France, will bring Catholic social teaching to a secular Europe
Pope Leo XIV flies to France on Friday, where across four days in three cities he will proclaim Catholic teaching to the heart of secular Europe on matters that include end-of-life questions, immigration, and artificial intelligence.The visit “will truly be a moment in which Leo’s project of making the Church’s social doctrine better known can take shape,” said Father Patrick Valdrini, a former rector of the Institut Catholique de Paris.France i…
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