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 and mandate 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 France's secular principles.
- French President Macron will receive the Pope at the Elysee Palace on Friday as an encounter between 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 represents 29% of the population, providing context for the visit's scale.
25 Articles
25 Articles
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Entre Nous - How do the French feel about religion?
Amid the enthusiasm over the first papal visit to France in 18 years, we take a deep dive into religion in France. We try to answer the question, "How do the French feel about religion?" From its Catholic…
Pope’s visit puts tension between French secularism and Catholicism in spotlight
As Pope Leo XIV prepares to visit France this weekend, the trip is set to highlight the country’s distinctive model of laïcité – secularism – and the enduring place of Catholicism in French public life.
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
Catholic World Report
ACI AfricaPope 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. [...]
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