{"id":5867,"date":"2026-05-16T15:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=5867"},"modified":"2026-05-16T15:50:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:50:00","slug":"pope-leo-will-visit-france-on-25-28-september-according-to-the-vatican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=5867","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo: will visit France on 25-28 September, according to the Vatican"},"content":{"rendered":"

France<\/strong> is preparing to welcome Pope Leo XIV<\/strong>, who will hold an official state visit from 25 to 28 September<\/strong>, as announced by Vatican<\/strong> on Saturday 16 May. <\/p>\n

This is a particularly important visit, as it will be the first official state visit of a pontiff to the country in almost two decades. <\/p>\n

The new prelate of the Roman Catholic Church<\/strong>, who was elected in May 2025 and is the first pope of United States<\/strong> descent, will travel to Paris<\/strong> at the invitation of both the head of the French state and the director general of UNESCO<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Pope Leo: Visit to UNESCO and Paris<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

According to a statement from Vatican<\/strong>, Pope Leo XIV<\/strong> will visit the headquarters of UNESCO<\/strong>, the United Nations agency for culture, giving special symbolism to his trip. <\/p>\n

The visit comes a few months after the pontiff’s planned trip to Spain<\/strong> in June and reflects his strategy to strengthen the Holy See’s ties with historically Catholic, but now more secular, European societies. <\/p>\n

Note that the last official state visit of a pope to France<\/strong> was made in September 2008 by Benedictus XVI<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Francis’ visits and Macron’s invitation<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\n

Although Pope Francis<\/strong> had visited France three times, with visits to Strasbourg<\/strong>, Marseilles<\/strong> and Corsica<\/strong>, those trips were not in the nature of an official state visit to the Holy See. <\/p>\n

The invitation to the new pontiff was originally extended by the president of the French Synod of Bishops (CEF<\/strong>), Cardinal Jean-Marc Avellin<\/strong>, and was echoed by the President of France, Emanuel Macron<\/strong>, during his visit to the Vatican last April. <\/p>\n

Cardinal Jean-Marc Avellin<\/strong> had said earlier in May that Pope Leo XIV<\/strong> has expressed “the great esteem he has for our country and its intellectual history.” <\/p>\n

In Lourdes the Pontiff<\/h2>\n

Beyond Paris<\/strong>, the pontiff will also visit Lourdes<\/strong>, one of the world’s most important sites of Christian pilgrimage. <\/p>\n

The city in southwestern France<\/strong> has previously hosted John Paul II<\/strong> in 1983 and 2004, and Benedictus XVI<\/strong> in 2008. According to the pilgrimage site, hundreds of thousands of faithful had gathered to see the pope in person on each of these visits. <\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n France is preparing to welcome Pope Leo XIV, who will pay an official state visit from 25 to 28 September, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}