Catholic Church in France

Um, so why did he want to go? I'm not sure.

I think it's in part that there's this so-called revival happening in the French Church.

Uh, they've seen a 400% increase in baptisms, uh, new converts, especially adolescents and young adults since the COVID pandemic.

So there's a lot of talk of kind of a rebirth of the French Church.

There's also the fact that I think Leo is just kind of prioritizing different places than Francis for papal visits.

Um, I think that he recognizes that there's a lot of power in going to a historically Catholic country and, you know, turning out those big crowds that really awaken something in society, whereas Francis's priority was often on going places with teeny, tiny Christian minorities and encouraging those groups, uh, in his own way.

All right, Jerry, we're going to take a quick break now.

And when we return, we'll talk about the changes that the French church is undergoing and what we'll be looking for in Pope Leo's messages to the French church.

Stay with us.

It's me,

Whereas in the 1960s, 85% of the country identified as Catholic, that number now ranges from 29% to 46%, depending on how belonging is measured.

And a full 50% of the French claim no religion.

So Jerry, looking at this papal visit and the messages to the French church, which is kind of rapidly undergoing this secularization, but also this wave of converts, it seems to me that his messages, his events fall into a few buckets.

There's the bucket of welcoming newcomers either to France or to the church.

Huguenots.

Um, or we told, uh, in the 17th century, large migration, um, in the 17th century due to religious persecution in Catholic France.

Wow.

We see, uh, this in household names like de Villiers, Milan, du Plessis, which is still pronounced the French way, du Plessis, uh, and, uh, Labuschagne, um, pronounced the Marnus way.