On his first visit to France, Pope Leo XIV will visit the restored Notre-Dame and meet privately with survivors of abuse in the Catholic Church. Reuters and Euronews describe the four-day journey, from September 25 to 28, 2026, as the first official papal visit to France in 18 years. The two events give the trip a weight his visit to Spain lacked, where no meeting with victims had initially been planned.
The cathedral visit is the most visible part of the Paris programme. At 17:15, Leo XIV will celebrate Vespers with bishops and priests, alongside consecrated people. He will be the first pope to enter Notre-Dame since its restoration and reopening in 2024.
The cathedral was partly destroyed in the fire of 15 April 2019. Pope Francis declined an invitation to attend its inauguration. Leo XIV will enter a building whose reopening has already begun a new chapter in its public life.
The meeting with abuse survivors carries similar weight because it is on the official itinerary, not a last-minute response. No such encounter had been planned during the pope's trip to Spain. The Vatican acted only after victims asked for one. Reuters described France's independent commission's 2021 report on sexual abuse in the Church as a national shock. That report still shapes the context for the visit.
Paris will welcome the pope at Orly airport at 10:00 on Friday. An hour later, he is due to meet Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace. He will then travel by popemobile along a 2.5-kilometre route from Montparnasse to Place de Saint-Michel.
At 15:00, Leo XIV will speak at UNESCO. Vatican News and The Pillar say he is expected to address artificial intelligence and peace, with interreligious dialogue also on the agenda. At 21:00, he will attend a vigil with 80,000 young people at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis.
The programme folds state diplomacy and Church accountability into the pope's direct contact with the faithful.
Saturday begins in Paris with a visit to a social centre. The pope will then travel to Lourdes, where several events are scheduled at the sanctuary on Saturday and Sunday. Reuters and AP report that the private encounter with survivors is scheduled there. Reuters says seven people who experienced abuse are expected to meet the pope. On Monday, he will fly to Metz in northeastern France for an interreligious meeting focused on European peace and unity, then return to the Vatican.
The Vatican has placed the meeting with abuse survivors clearly on the public schedule. Announced in advance, the encounter is part of the trip's programme, unlike the earlier Spanish visit, where victims had to ask for a meeting. It also differs from another recent travel story, covered in an earlier report, about a delayed Iberia landing in Melilla.
France's itinerary brings Macron and UNESCO into the same papal visit as stops at Notre-Dame, Lourdes and Metz. For the Church, the private meeting with survivors is the sharpest test. The restored cathedral will provide the strongest public image. The decision to meet survivors gives the journey its weight, after victims had previously been forced to bring the issue into the itinerary themselves.
