A Christian triumph

If, as is said, the arc of history bends toward justice, then Pope Leo’s just concluded four-day visit to France can only be described as an arc de triomphe.

Not, it must be stressed, triumph in the sense of worldly vainglory or puff-chested conquest. Rather, triumph meaning victory as won by Our Lord on His arrival in humility to hosanna-singing crowds, and over death itself through the sacrifice of His Cross and Resurrection.

“Hundreds of thousands stretched the length of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées on Saturday, encircling the Arc de Triomphe to catch a glimpse of the American pontiff (as) Leo cruised down the famous boulevard on the popemobile before celebrating an open-air Mass in the Place de la Concorde, a historic first,” is how the Wall Street Journal framed it. 

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For its part, the BBC estimated the crowd for that single Paris event at 700,000. Numerous other media outlets highlighted the significant proportion of those thronging the City of Light who were young people in their late teens and early twenties. Indeed, more than 80,000 young people filled the Stade de France for, of all things, a prayer vigil that brought home the irrevocable historic bonds between Holy Mother Church and France. 

No wonder President Emmanuel Macron, still a comparatively youthful 48, was willing to risk criticism for breaching France’s strict separation of Church and State by strolling up the red carpet with Leo at the Elysée Palace. 

Last Easter, there were more than 13,000 adult baptisms in the country where so-called laicité, or State secularism, has been enforced by law since 1905. That’s a reported three-fold increase from 2019. The French bishops conference says 8,500 of those sacramentally entering the Church were teenagers – 10 times the number from seven years ago.

Proving, as if proof were ever needed, that apostolic inhabitants of the See of Peter are there because of a holy spirit and The Holy Spirit, Leo responded to the outpouring of faith, curiosity and charity with the perfect esprit: humility.

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As veteran columnist William McGurn wrote, the pontiff’s approach was one of consistent continuity with his predecessors, dating back to at least Saint John Paul II, in recognizing that new things and new ways are needed for the laborious work of renewing a sense of Christian transcendence in France.

Today, McGurn wrote, it is French-style secularism that is losing its braggadocio as evidenced by even Macron insisting that the nation’s Church-State arrangement “in no way negates” religious faith.

“Mr. Macron’s gesture was returned by Pope Leo’s embrace of the French Revolution’s cry of ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ as a shared affirmation of universal rights,” McGurn wrote.

Repeatedly during his visit Pope Leo reminded listeners that such an affirmation is wholly dependent on recognition of the full human dignity of each and every person. As Register columnist Sister Helena Burns writes in this issue, nowhere was that emphasis more profound than on the Holy Father’s raising again the need for putting humanity first in the face of overly rapid development of AI. As Sr. Burns writes, the current Pope is perhaps the most persuasive leadership voice pointing out that whatever AI becomes, it cannot ever replicate the human capacity to grow in moral wisdom. Why? Because it cannot “judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences.”

What a crucial, timely message to impart the capacity for judging good, evil, and ultimate meaning as a sine qua non of human nature, especially for those born into a world where such metaphysical concerns are routinely dismissed as the stuff of dusty history. How doubly important to unapologetically deliver such a message in 2026 France, the cradle of postmodern ennui. And what beauty to have it delivered with the humility of Pope Leo, the servant of the servants of God. 

“Everywhere we look, we are led by a cartoon parade of the grotesque, the inept, the forgettable: political leaders of towering vanity and vapidity, a business leadership class that helps itself to greater riches even it gets preachier with the rest of us,” wrote former WSJ editor-in-chief Gerard Baker.

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“There is something simpler about the appeal of this humble son of the Midwest. He is the one man in the world most of us can look up to,” Baker concluded.

What a comfort it is, at this point in the tragedy and comedy of human history, to read such a just description of true Christian triumph.

A version of this article appeared in the October 04, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "A Christian triumph".