Pope Leo in France: The issues on the table

Paris: Pope Leo XIV is to begin an official visit to France on Friday, with several thorny issues hanging over the trip, from clerical sexual abuse to the country’s new assisted dying law.

Here are some of the key issues the pontiff is expected to face while on the first official visit to France by a head of the Roman Catholic Church in 18 years:

Clerical abuse

The Vatican announced in August that Pope Leo XIV will meet victims of clerical sexual abuse during his visit.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has promised to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.

A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 people as minors in France, over the span of 70 years.

The Church’s reputation has since been hit by further scandals, including a raft of sexual abuse accusations against charity icon Abbe Pierre and widespread physical and sexual abuse at the Notre-Dame de Betharram boarding school in southwestern France.

The first pontiff from the United States is due to meet seven victims on Sunday in Lourdes, a town in southwestern France where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared in a grotto in 1858.

Those to speak to the pope include a former student at Betharram who is now 80 years old.

The format is similar to one the pope used in Spain in June, where Pope Leo promised the Church would make “additional efforts” to change.

Mosaics that once adorned the Lourdes sanctuary have been covered up after accusations that the artist behind them, a Slovenian priest called Marko Rupnik, abused a community of adult religious women in the 1990s.

Assisted dying law

France’s parliament passed legislation in June establishing a right to assisted dying for some adults suffering from an incurable condition.

The move drew strong criticism from the Catholic Church in France, which denounced the bill as a serious “rupture”.

Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, head of the French bishops’ conference, said “the defence of the dignity of human life” was at the heart of the pope’s message.

“How will he convey this in France? We shall see,” he added.

Martin Dumont, the secretary-general of a religion research institute in France, said it was possible Pope Leo would raise the subject.

“But I would be very surprised if he took a confrontational stance,” Dumont said, suggesting the pope could instead highlight the need to care for the elderly and vulnerable.

Presidential election

France is just seven months away from the first round of its presidential election to replace President Emmanuel Macron, making Pope Leo’s visit unusual as pontiffs rarely travel to a country so close to a major vote.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally party views next year’s contest as its best chance yet to take power.

Migration, which is set to be a hot-button issue in the election, was a key focus on Pope Leo’s trip to Spain in June, where he condemned “indifference” towards migrants.

In France, he is due to visit an association providing support for migrants, a “strong signal”, according to Dumont.

Europe’s role

Pope Leo’s trip will be the first papal state visit to France since Benedict XVI’s in September 2008.

Coming after his visit to Spain, it highlights the pope’s interest in engaging with historically Catholic but increasingly non-religious European countries that were largely overlooked by his predecessor, Francis.

Pope Leo is due to deliver several speeches, including at the UN culture agency UNESCO and in the northeastern city of Metz, near the German border.

His programme in Metz includes a meeting entitled “To the roots of Europe for peace and unity”.

While he is unlikely to single out any political actors during his visit to France, his message will inevitably carry political weight, said Charles Mercier, a director at France’s Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.

“By choosing to defend European integration, the Pope is already giving his visit a political direction,” said Mercier.

The pope also places considerable importance on multilateralism and sees Europe as a counterweight to global powers, said Francois Mabille, director of the Geopolitical Observatory on Religion.

That includes “Europe’s role in relation to what he calls ‘imperial logics’ - namely the United States, China and Russia,” Mabille said.