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METZ, France (CNS) -- In a French city that changed hands between France and Germany through two world wars, Pope Leo XIV used the final day of his apostolic journey to France to call on Europe to resist a return to nationalism and conflict and recommit itself to cooperation, dialogue and peace.Speaking Sept. 28 in Metz, a city whose streets and architecture still bear the marks of its fraught Franco-German history, the pope repeatedly invoked Robert Schuman, the French politician and devout Catholic whose efforts to reconcile France and Germany after World War II helped lay the foundations of the European Union.Pope Leo called Schuman a clear-sighted leader who understood the need to overcome opposition between cultural identities and build multilateral institutions after a war "which showed the depths of the evil that human beings are capable of when they believe that nothing stands in the way of their exercise of power.""Today, sadly, war has returned, even to Europe:

PARIS (CNS) -- On the first official papal state visit to France in 18 years, Pope Leo XIV stepped into one of the country's perpetual underlying tensions: the place of religion in a republic whose modern political identity was partly forged through separation from the Catholic Church.  Pope Leo XIV rides in the popemobile from Place Charles-de-Gaulle to Place de la Concorde in Paris Sept. 26, 2026, before celebrating Mass. The Arc de Triomphe is in the background. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez) Throughout the Paris leg of his Sept. 25-28 apostolic journey, Pope Leo argued that France's deeply rooted tradition of secularism, or "laïcité," need not exclude religion from public life. Instead, he said religious institutions and the state can work together in defense of human dignity and the common good."An authentic secularity, then, consists not in excluding religion from the public sphere or from education, but in striving to ensure that the state and rel

ROME (CNS) -- Led by their priests, Catholics need to come together and face the truth about what their local church is doing and why, Pope Leo XIV told clergy and laypeople in his diocese.This process of discernment and "pastoral evaluation does not ask you to do more; on the contrary, it gives you permission to do less -- and to do it better," the pope, who is bishop of Rome, said to applause.Pope Leo addressed hundreds of diocesan leaders, both clergy and laity, during a diocesan assembly Sept. 18 at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome. The leaders represented the 334 parishes and their ministries in a diocese that covers 340 square miles.The pope first listened to a young woman, a couple and a member of the diocese's Caritas team as they recounted the various joys and challenges they face in their lives and work.  Pope Leo XIV speaks to hundreds of diocesan leaders during an assembly at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the c

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a world of increasing technological dependence and polarization, Pope Leo XIV said there is greater urgency for humanity to see itself as a single "human community.""The perfection of the human person and the development of society must be regarded as closely interdependent: to set them against one another or separate them would be to render them meaningless," the pope said during his Sept. 16 weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.As artificial intelligence opens up new possibilities, it also comes with risks as relationships become more virtual and less personal, Pope Leo said, continuing his series of reflections on the Second Vatican Council's pastoral constitution "Gaudium et Spes."The constitution highlights human interdependence and the need for mutual respect, he said, and invites people to draw strength from God's plan that all people "constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood