Pope Leo visits France: 80,000 young people pack stadium!

In September, Pope Leo made a historic visit to France. The visit was filled with symbolism and meaning for anyone who is paying attention to what is going on in the world today. Here is a quick overview of Pope Leo’s visit to France in 100 seconds!

A highlight was a prayer vigil with young people in Stade de France, the largest stadium in France.

Here is a powerful reflection from a French protestant taking it all in!

“I must admit at once, with this awkwardness that Protestants have cultivated for five centuries: talking about the Pope is not natural for me. I come from a tradition that is wary of processions and parades, which prefers the silence of the heart to the noise of cathedrals. And yet I cannot look away from these images that came from Paris.

Eighty thousand young people. Eighty thousand faces, most of them born after the sociologists had already buried the faith of this country. They sing in the streets of a capital that we had described as definitively free from its Christian past, as if a people could really divorce their own memory. I think of what I wrote elsewhere about grace: it always emerges where one no longer expects it, in the gaps we have carefully paved of indifference.

So yes, I look at this Parisian fervor, this "oldest daughter of the Church" who, over the course of a weekend, discovers that she has a family, a history, a sisterhood of faith that goes beyond her own denials... and I see less of a Catholic triumph there than a broader, more fragile, more precious sign: that of a youth and a people who are thirsty for something other than what late modernity promised them. They were not looking for the Pope. They were looking for a place where their brotherhood in Christ would not be a subject of embarrassment, but of assumed joy, sung, danced in the street and in a stadium.

I know what some of my Protestant brothers and sisters will say. That I am going astray, that I confuse fervor and truth, that the enthusiasm of the crowds has never been a good theological thermometer. They are not wrong... history has taught us to be wary of popular, Catholic or evangelical ties, as long as they can bring the best of what is bad. But I also believe that there is a form of spiritual meanness that consists of never rejoicing at what God is doing among the neighbor, under the pretext that he does not bear our label.

So this morning, I choose to rejoice without reservation. I choose to believe that a young person who discovers Christ in a Parisian crowd is no less blessed than a young person who discovers Him in a small country church without a bell or images. I choose to believe that our divisions, however real and sometimes necessary they may be, are never the last word... that the last word always belongs to grace, and that grace itself has never had a religious passport.” Philippe Tarabon from his Facebook page