It all begins with ‘so that’. This is not a statement of fact. We are not told that the world is fine, that the world ‘has’ life, let alone that everything will be all right. ‘So that’ denotes a goal. There is still something to be achieved. Almost a collective responsibility. These two little words transform a spiritual phrase into a programme: what must we do so that the world remains habitable, humane and alive?
Next comes ‘the world’. Not Catholics. Not believers. Not France. Not the West. The world. And this choice is no accident. Bishop Bruno Valentin, tasked with officially explaining the motto, points out that the term used in the Greek text is *kosmos*, which refers to creation as a whole, right down to its sometimes conflictual relationship with God. In other words, the message is intended to reach beyond the circle of the faithful.
And then there is ‘life’. Here again, the word seems obvious until one tries to define it. The Greek text uses *zoé*. In the Christian interpretation of this motto, it refers not merely to the biological fact of being alive, but to life in its fullness.
It is precisely here that these seven words become interesting for non-believers. For what does a life lived to the full mean in 2026? Is it merely breathing, working, consuming and waiting for the next day? Or is it being able to love, create, pass on one’s legacy, be free, receive care, have enough to eat, live in peace and retain one’s dignity?
The religious phrase thus comes into sharp contrast with our times. Wars, climate change, migration, loneliness, poverty, artificial intelligence, ageing, end-of-life care: behind seemingly unrelated debates often lies the same fundamental question. What value do we place on human existence, and under what conditions do we consider that a life is truly worth living?
This perspective is, moreover, not entirely far-fetched. In his explanation of the motto, Bishop Bruno Valentin explicitly refers to the French debate on end-of-life issues and the opposition, traditional in Catholic discourse, between the ‘culture of life’ and the ‘culture of death’. Vatican News also emphasises that issues relating to the protection of life are likely to feature prominently during Leo XIV’s visit.
One may, of course, disagree with the Catholic Church’s answers. One may be a believer, an agnostic, an atheist or completely indifferent to religion. But the question raised by the motto remains. And this is perhaps its true success: it allows those who do not believe to embrace it without first having to accept the dogma from which it stems.
For ‘That the world may have life’ can refer just as much to peace as to ecology, to dignity as to fraternity, to poverty as to welcoming the stranger. The French bishops have, moreover, framed the preparations for the trip within this idea of being architects of ‘unity and dialogue, justice and peace’.
At a time when political communication churns out slogans designed to divide people into immediately identifiable camps, this phrase possesses a strange power: it designates no enemy. It does not even state exactly what one ought to think. It simply points the way.
Life.
Of course, the essential question remains: what kind of life, for whom, and under what conditions? It is precisely because the phrase does not close this question that it works.
Léon XIV comes to France with a phrase taken from a text dating back nearly two thousand years. And, whether you’re a believer or not, it’s hard to find a more contemporary question: in the world we are in the process of building, what are we going to decide to keep alive?
