In a country that has for decades portrayed itself as secular, detached from the Church and generally wary of religious institutions, hundreds of thousands of people want to see a man dressed in white walk through Paris. The vigil for 17- to 35-year-olds at the Stade de France was sold out, and the organisers are expecting between 500,000 and 600,000 people for the grand Parisian mass.
It would be tempting to see this simply as a spectacular resurgence of Catholicism. That would be jumping to conclusions. An Ifop poll carried out in early September, moreover, reveals a much more nuanced picture of France: 32 per cent of French people consider that Pope Leo XIV defends the values of Catholicism rather well, whilst 58 per cent answer ‘neither well nor badly’.
This so-called enthusiasm may perhaps reveal something else.
In a society saturated with information, political conflicts, social media, artificial intelligence and constant demands, the figure of the Pope possesses something that has become extremely rare: symbolism. Whether one is a believer, an atheist, an agnostic or completely indifferent to theology, a pope represents two thousand years of history, continuity, ritual and the idea that there is still something that transcends the news of the week.
Perhaps that is what draws people in.
France is probably not seeing a mass return to church. But part of the country seems to be seeking meaning, a sense of community, a sense of hierarchy, and sometimes even the sacred, at a time when many of the old collective structures — political, trade union, media or ideological — no longer command the same level of support.
And the phenomenon is particularly interesting amongst young people. Their massive presence means we cannot reduce religion to a form of nostalgia for the elderly. Nor does it mean that an entire generation is becoming Catholic. At the very least, it shows that the spiritual question has not disappeared with TikTok, Netflix and ChatGPT.
Perhaps the opposite is true: the more technological, fast-paced and virtual the world becomes, the more some people feel the need for ceremonies, places of worship, silence, community and embodied figures.
This is where this visit becomes fascinating, even beyond the scope of Catholicism.
One might discuss the Church’s positions, its history, its contradictions and its influence. One may be a believer or believe in absolutely nothing. But when a religious event still manages to draw several hundred thousand people in one of Europe’s most secularised societies, a journalist would be wrong to focus solely on the Pope.
We must look at the crowd.
Because it perhaps tells us less about God than it does about our times.
