Pope Leo XIV will undertake a four-day visit to France next month that emphasizes addressing the history of clergy sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. The Vatican announced the trip on Friday, noting that abuse survivors will participate in planning the meeting with the pontiff. The timing and location of this encounter will be disclosed at a future date.
France has a significant history with this issue. A 2021 report indicated that approximately 330,000 children experienced sexual abuse over a 70-year period by church personnel. The pontiff signaled his commitment to this area last month by appointing French Bishop Thibault Verny to lead the Vatican’s child protection advisory commission. The pope previously met with six survivors during a recent trip to Spain, where the Catholic hierarchy has begun addressing its institutional handling of abuse allegations after lengthy resistance to acknowledging the problem’s scope.
The itinerary for the Sept. 25-28 visit includes multiple components across different French locations. The pope will begin in Paris with meetings including French President Emmanuel Macron and an address at UNESCO headquarters. He will participate in vespers at Notre-Dame Cathedral and lead a prayer vigil with young people at a national stadium. On the second day, the pontiff will visit a center dedicated to social support and integration, meet with a synodal assembly focused on lay participation in church governance, and attend sessions with newly baptized Catholics.
The pope will then travel to Lourdes, a major Catholic pilgrimage destination, where he will pray at the Grotto of the Apparitions, visit a facility serving sick individuals, and participate in the sanctuary’s traditional Rosary and torchlight procession. The final portion of the trip takes place in Metz, near the borders with Luxembourg and Germany, where an interreligious gathering will occur at a conference center named for Robert Schuman, a French statesman involved in European integration who the Catholic Church declared “venerable” in 2021.
This represents the pontiff’s fourth international trip of the year, following visits to Monaco, African nations, Spain, and the Canary Islands. Vatican officials also confirmed this week that the pope will make his first Latin American visit as pontiff in November, traveling to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru, where he previously served for more than three decades. The France journey reflects a shift in papal travel patterns, as his predecessor maintained limited engagement with major European Christian centers during his 12-year tenure.
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