Faith & Reflection: Voices from the Black Church and Beyond
- Surge in baptisms of adults and adolescents prompts diocesan synodal assembly to address causes and integrate new Catholics.
- Pope Leo XIV urged liturgies be celebrated with dignity and reverence, placing obedience to the pope and communion above personal preferences.
- Pope Leo XIV called for comprehensive formation of catechists and godparents to accompany converts in an state of initiation.
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PARIS, France (RNS) – Pope Leo XIV was visibly moved as he watched the crowd of nearly 80,000 people, especially young people, join in celebration of the Catholic faith at France’s largest stadium, the Stade de France, outside Paris on Friday (Sept. 25).
The youth prayer vigil was the culmination of his first, whirlwind day in Paris, where he addressed a new wave of Catholic converts, including many young people, with a message of inclusion and hope. But he also took the opportunity to promote a spirit of unity and dialogue among France’s traditionalist Catholics, many of them attached to the old Latin liturgy.
“Whoever lives with God is free from everything that darkens life, rendering it empty and meaningless,” he told the cheering crowd.
Leo invited young people to shun a lifestyle that “drives us to have everything, but to become no one; to receive countless ‘likes,’ but to reman alone with ourselves.” He encouraged them toward “the path to holiness,” modeled by the many saints born from France.
The pope was presented with a spectacle of music and costumes, as actors impersonated the history of France’s saints, including a horse-riding Joan of Arc, the patron saint of France whose image has also long been embraced by the country’s Catholic and nationalist right.
The artistic direction of the vigil was handled by Jean-Baptiste Darantière, son of the head of Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, which organizes traditional liturgy pilgrimages from Paris to Chartres.
Referencing Joan of Arc, the pope urged young people to fight evil but stated that “our battle is not against others,” and rejected “weapons of violence, contempt and oppression.” Instead he called on Catholics to fight with “self-giving love.”
Leo’s meeting with French youth occurred as the country experiences an unexpected surge in Catholic adult and youth baptisms. At the same time, secularized France is witnessing the emergence of a more conservative cohort of Catholics, who are drawn to the church’s traditional rites and liturgy.
Adult baptisms have more than tripled since 2016, when the count was 4,124, while French bishops have reported a 10% rise between 2025 and 2026 in adolescent catechumens, meaning people preparing to receive Catholic initiation to the sacraments.
“These new Catholics tend to be more conservative, both liturgically and politically,” said Charles Mercier, professor of Catholic sociology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He believes “part of the explanation may be that they are looking for structure and clear frameworks in a society they perceive as increasingly fluid.”
The Notre-Dame de Chrétienté pilgrimage reported 20,000 pilgrims in 2026. Organizers said participation had grown by 10,000 over the past decade and that more than half of participants were under the age of 25.
Division over the celebration of the liturgy made global headlines in July with the Vatican’s excommunication of the Society of St. Pius X, which celebrates the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass and opposes the council’s embrace of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue.
Leo weighed in on the liturgical debate briefly during his visit to the newly restored cathedral of Notre Dame on Friday. The pope said liturgical celebrations must be “carried out with dignity and reverence,” but he also stressed Catholics must place obedience to the pope and communion with the church “above personal preferences.”
Inside the now luminous cathedral, which had been nearly destroyed in a 2019 blaze, Leo introduced his message that Catholics in the country “may be reborn with it in a new impetus toward holiness and daily mission.”
The growing number of Catholic converts led the dioceses of the greater Paris area to convene a synodal assembly in May, with the goal of identifying the root causes of the surge and how to ensure the new faithful remain engaged in the faith. Participants of the assembly had a chance to meet with Pope Leo on Saturday and present their working document.
“I am struck by the number of people returning to the threshold of the faith, and by the many adults seeking the sacraments of Christian initiation,” Leo said. While he acknowledged the “paradox” of this phenomenon in a place like France, marked by a “deeply secularized culture,” he also said the church “must not become complicit or naively optimistic”
During the synodal assembly, the pope also heard from recent converts. One young man from the Diocese of Nanterre told the pope he found his faith reading the Bible and through videos on the internet. He said he was shy at first and felt “isolated” at church, which led him to drift away for a while before returning to be baptized.
Another woman, from the Diocese of Creteil, said she was inspired to join the church by her daughter and asked the pope how to avoid the “baptism blues,” a reference to the feeling of emptiness that can occur once the initial zeal of conversion is replaced by ordinary parish life.
The pope urged the assembly to embody a “state of initiation,” where new Catholics are offered continued guidance. This must be done with respect for personal history and experiences, he added, while urging churches and parishes to “fully integrate” new converts into the community.
He also said the liturgy must be a “part of the very journey of conversion and preparation for the sacraments,” given its ability to attract new faithful.
Leo called for a comprehensive formation of catechists and godparents charged with accompanying people toward the understanding of the faith, not just theologically but also “in human qualities.”
Before leaving Paris for the Marian sanctuary of Lourdes, the pope celebrated an open-air Mass Saturday afternoon at Place de la Concorde, where Vatican officials estimated 700,000 people gathered waving French and Holy See flags along the iconic Champs Élysées
“Nothing in the world can truly satisfy us,” the pope said, “the human person is a being of desire and only God can fill the emptiness within us.” Leo then urged catechumens to spread “a civilization of love.”
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