Pope Leo on Friday cautioned against humanity being lost in a “paradise of machines” as thousands gathered to welcome him to France.
“If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment,” Leo said.
During the first official papal visit to France in 18 years, the pope said that “authentic secularity” should not mean excluding religion. France has maintained a formal separation between church and state since 1905.
“It consists not in excluding religion from the public sphere or from education, but in striving to ensure that the state and religious institutions maintain dialogue and join forces in the service of the common good,” said the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
In recent years, French politicians have cited the country’s model of secularism to defend bans on religious symbols, including Muslim women’s attire in schools and other public spaces.
France is seven months away from the first round of its presidential election to replace Macron, while the anti-immigration far right sees the vote as its strongest opportunity yet to take power.
France passed legislation in June giving some adult patients the right to assisted dying. The first US pontiff said he was troubled by developments that risk turning science and technology into profit-driven enterprises involving genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs or the ability to arrange one’s own death.
Pope Leo XIV is welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron during a private visit to the Élysée Palace
Pope Leo XIV holds a private meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron
Pope Leo on Friday warned against humanity being lost in a “paradise of machines” as thousands gathered to welcome him to France amid global concern about the dangers of artificial intelligence
The pope, whose paternal grandmother was born in France, called on the European country to remain a “tireless champion of peace” around the world as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year.
Macron and his wife, Brigitte, greeted the 71-year-old pope at the airport, where a red carpet had been laid across the tarmac. The visit is the first official trip to France by a Vatican leader since Pope Benedict XVI travelled there in September 2008.
“I’m travelling to France, as to anywhere else in the world, as a follower of Jesus Christ wanting to proclaim peace, the peace of Christ throughout the world,” Pope Leo told reporters aboard the plane.
He said that message was “particularly important” at the present time.
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Around one million people are expected to attend events across Paris during the first two days of the pope’s visit.
The central event of the apostolic journey will take place on Saturday, when the pontiff leads a large Mass at Place de la Concorde and along the adjoining Champs-Elysées.
Pope Leo is also scheduled to visit Lourdes, the globally renowned Christian pilgrimage site, where he will meet privately with victims of clerical sexual abuse. In Metz, near the German border, he is expected to continue his discussion of peace in Europe.
“The pope’s visit gives me a sense of peace in a troubled world,” said Andrée Estienne, 76. She added that she was eager to attend the Mass on the Champs-Elysées.
“I don’t think I will experience anything of this scale again in my lifetime.”
Later on Friday, Leo is due to greet crowds during a 2.5-kilometre (1.5-mile) journey in the popemobile to Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris. He will be the first pope to view the restoration work following the devastating fire that damaged the landmark in 2019.
His predecessor Pope Francis – who visited France three times, but never officially – did not attend the Gothic masterpiece’s reopening in late 2024, when then president-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk were among the guests.
Carmen Quintana, a 71-year-old Peruvian, said she would be among the crowd.
‘We’re very happy to be able to be near him,’ she said of the pontiff, who spent two decades as a missionary in Peru and also holds Peruvian nationality.
Last on his agenda for the day will be a mass prayer and hymns with 80,000 young believers aged 17 to 35 in a stadium in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
A relic, believed to be the tunic Jesus wore during the Passion, will have been transported out of the nearby Saint-Denis Cathedral to the stadium for the occasion.
Only around five percent of France’s 69 million residents go to Catholic church regularly, a survey last year found.
But while the number of infant christenings has dwindled in recent years, teenage and adult baptisms are on the rise, with thousands choosing to embrace the faith.
