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Leo met members of a Church assembly examining a decade-long rise in Catholic baptisms.PARIS — Pope Leo XIV met new and prospective Catholics and their leaders on Saturday as he encouraged the Catholic Church in France to “strike a wise balance” between welcoming new members as they are and educating them in the tenets of the faith.
“It may seem paradoxical that this phenomenon … is taking place against the backdrop of a society like that of France, which is marked by a deeply secularized culture,” the pope said at the Catholic Institute of Paris on Sept. 26.
According to Franceʼs national demographic institute, more than half of French adults report no religious affiliation. While 29% of the population identifies as Catholic, the survey found only 8% say they go to Church regularly.
Despite this, the Catholic Church continues to see record-breaking numbers of baptisms every year. In 2026, France recorded more than 20,000 adult and adolescent baptisms, a 20% increase from the already record-high number in 2025, which saw a 45% increase from 2024 figures.
The pope said people approach the Church for a variety of reasons, from a search for meaning to personal hardship.
The Church must welcome newcomers while helping them embrace the demands of Christian life, he said.
Leo visited the Catholic university hall where the new Provincial Ecclesial Assembly of Île-de-France will hold its three sessions beginning in mid-October.
Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris said in his welcoming remarks that more than 350 people from eight dioceses of the Province of Paris and the Military Ordinariate will meet for a synodal discussion on “Catechumens and Neophytes: New Perspectives for the Life of Our Church in Our Dioceses.”
Ulrich noted that 45,000 people responded in the assembly’s consultation phase.
“This renewed request for the sacraments of Christian initiation has come as a surprise to us, and we see in it the work of the Lord,” the archbishop said.
Leo said the increase in baptisms should be welcomed as the work of the Holy Spirit.
Calling the sustained growth in conversions “God’s surprising work,” Leo encouraged the Church in Paris to ask where the Holy Spirit is leading them with regard to accompanying new Catholics and seekers.
He told catechumens and newly baptized Catholics that they represented hope for the future of the Church in France.
New Catholic 22-year-old Loïs Barbichon told EWTN News that he came to faith during the COVID-19 pandemic, “largely through reading.”
“I felt kind of an inner impulse, a desire to be baptized and to learn more.” He was baptized at the Easter Vigil in 2023, and now he accompanies other young people entering the Church.
“Now the goal is to ensure that each newly baptized person finds a mission so that they do not feel abandoned by the community but rather find their place within it,” he said. “Today, I am mainly involved in the Scripture readings at Mass, and I am very happy about that.”
About Pope Leo’s visit to France, Barbichon, who is studying history, heritage, and museum studies, said “it is very important that he be able to speak to young people.”
Sister Christine Kohler will participate in the assembly as a representative of men and women religious in France.
She is superior general of the Little Sisters of the Gospel and lives in the Diocese of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris sometimes described as a “quartier sensibile” (vulnerable neighborhood).
“At Easter, we baptized 20 people during the Easter Vigil in a single parish in the Diocese of Saint-Denis,” she told EWTN News. “I think there were more than 500 in total across the diocese. This is something that raises many questions for us. How is it that adults and teenagers, sometimes 18 years old and sometimes 70, are saying, ‘I would like to become a Christian?’”
Kohler said many newcomers arrive after asking questions about meaning, suffering, and God.
One change the sister has seen in France in the last 15 years is a greater missionary impulse among local Catholics.
“It is no longer simply: ‘I live my faith and I live it within my parish.’ There is now this desire to share it, to become missionary disciples … this desire to bear witness and to say, ‘This is what gives us life.’”
She said she hoped the assembly would help the Church become more welcoming to newcomers.
In her opinion, the pope’s presence Saturday morning may have arisen not only from a desire to encourage the synodal assembly but also to listen and understand more about the “people who are questioning, searching, and wanting to become Christians.”
During the event, a catechumen (baptized but not yet confirmed), a new Catholic, and a director of Christian initiation spoke about their experiences to Pope Leo.
New Catholic Marielle described the challenge of finding one’s place in the community after formally entering the Church. A young man, Jaoide, shared about the winding path he took to get to his baptism last year. He said his journey began when he read both the Quran and the New Testament.
“I was struck by the figure of Jesus,” he said, “above all, by his determination to show us the example through his life and through the trials he endured to the very end.”
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When confronted with challenges of all sorts in life, people are known to turn to time tested rituals that provide strength, courage, fearlessness, and joy that never ends.
Baptism is known to offer strength. Even Jesus humbly received baptism at the hands of John the Baptist in the River Jordan.
Yes, the mystery of the humility of God to enter into his own creation, and for Christ to accept baptism from John who, himself, already had been baptized—in the womb at the Visitation with Elizabeth by Mary, Theotokos.
And, then the mystery of the Triune One manifested in the moment of Christ’s baptism: “The skies opened and the Holy Spirit [!] descended upon him in visible form like a dove. A voice from heaven [!] was heard to say: ‘You are my beloved Son [!] on you my favor rests” (Luke ,3:21-22).
As von Balthasar summarizes the Incarnation: “The Son reveals God in the form of a [humble] servant [!], but the Holy Spirit, being the glory of God, illumines the servant’s form and lets its glory [!] be seen. But this is not enough. If in the simply human word the Son had not said more than a man can say, if in his witness to the Father he had not also had the support of the Father’s witness [!] to him (as the Father’s Word), then the Son’s transfiguration [!] by the Holy Spirit could not have made shine forth anything more than what already was manifest in the Son’s humanity [….] God is able, therefore, to reveal in Christ at once God and man, and thus not in alteration, as is often suggested simplistically, but simultaneously. Yet this occurs in such a way that the relativity of the human (as creaturely) does not appear to be oppressed and violated by the simultaneous absoluteness of the divine” (“The Glory of the Lord,” Ignatius 1998, Vol. 1, pp. 458-9).
From John the symbolic forgiveness of human sin; through Christ the sacramental gift even now into (more than “strength”) the life of divine grace.
While any amount of baptisms is good, this piece tries to spin what is still a dismal situation and hardly a ‘surprising’ growth. We are interestingly not given here the original figures for the 20% increase, i.e., 20% increase from what? As that figure is very low it’s not very promising: in 1980 there were 513,000 baptisms but in 2024, only 186,000; and for this year only 13,000 of them are adults. Having what amounts to .00018 of the population is hardly going to counter anything. And when only 9% of catholics go to Mass, that is a disaster. But no one wants to ask too deeply why, especially when Vatican II was supposed to usher in the great springtime…But don’t worry, there is a large religious surge in France; however, it’s with Islam, which seeks to supplant Christianity in europe. Yet Leo and co. foolishly welcome mass immigration of muslims.
“Pope addresses ‘surprising’ Catholic growth in secular France”
Growth in the Catholic faith is the work of the Holy Spirit. What’s “surprising” here is that the Pope would be “surprised” by its happening. Was Peter “surprised” when so many hearts were converted and baptized in the years immediately following Pentecost?
But, then again, this is EWTN News reporting this.
Pope Leo XIV and non-Muslims to convert to islam to avoid death by these punishments from God hurricanes Typhoon floods tornadoes lightnings hailstorm heatwave wildfires strong earthquakes more mag 7 earthquake tsunami volcano meteor in Europe in Africa in Asia in Pacific Ocean in North and South America September 27,2026 and to avoid hell Surah Al-Imran 85/3.
What’s the Arabic word for “troll”?
Thank you for your frankness and directness, Mr. Mountather. They contrast with the wishful thinking of so many good but naïve Christians and wit the obfuscations of the CC hierarchy.
When Islam becomes a major threat, secularized European countries suddenly try to return to their roots and find Christianit
During the event, a catechumen (baptized but not yet confirmed), a new Catholic, and a director of Christian initiation spoke about their experiences to Pope Leo.
Catechumens are unbaptized.
A surge to Catholicism in France may or may not happen.
But what is certain is the growth of traditional vetus ordo monasteries throughout this country.
Having been fortunate to retreat to le Barroux and Fontgombault monasteries in recent years and observe the presence of so many young men giving their lives over to God has been so inspiring.
And observe the young French men present testing their monastic vocation with the resident monks.
Only this summer did a vacated Trappist monastery at Bellefontaine become home to an overspill of twelve monks from Le Barroux.
The Novus Ordo retreated to be replaced by the Vetus Ordo.
Mustard seeds perhaps but certainly a little dynamic is underway reflecting the huge influence that monastic life played in Christendom with its contemplative silence and a shared monastic rhythm of life.
Is this what Alasdair McIntyre had in mind, ‘the world awaits a new Benedict’?
Perhaps pope Leo should consider a move to Avignon once again to learn what this mustard seed in France has to offer.
Decant the Vatican in his absence and root out the synodal cult.
Is the CC making any efforts to baptize the aliens (I mean the “mmigrants”) anywhere? True, we know that immigration is our strength, but still….
12 Charged With Anti-White Racism over Mass Stabbing Attack on Whites in French Village of Crépol
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/09/27/12-charged-anti-white-racism-over-mass-stabbing-attack-in-french-village/