Pope Leo XIV in France, and Assisi Reads a Pope Who Travels

Pope Leo XIV spent four days in France this week, warning at the Elysee Palace against a "paradise of machines" and urging the country to be a "tireless champion of peace", according to Le Monde and Al Jazeera. The New York Times reported that the trip was designed to appeal both to Roman Catholicism's original European heartlands and to its newer strongholds, following the pope's earlier visit to Africa. Politico Europe noted that at the Elysee he defended freedom of conscience without naming France's populist forces, as Marine Le Pen revived a proposed headscarf ban.

For Assisi, the visit carries a particular resonance. The town that gave the Church Francis is the site of the pope's chosen name, and pilgrimage traffic through Umbria has long tracked the papacy's public profile. Foreign coverage of this trip has focused on the pope's language on artificial intelligence and bioethics rather than on any Italian itinerary: Le Monde reported that he condemned surrogacy, the buying of organs and the concept of "arranging one's own death" in his Paris speech, while Politico Europe noted that Cardinal Michael Czerny, who leads a Vatican commission on AI, admitted he has not yet used the technology himself.