✈️ Eve of departure
Final preparations for the Apostolic Journey to France
📍 Vatican City
No public engagements are scheduled for Pope Leo XIV on this last day before departure for his fifth international Apostolic Journey: the flight to Paris/Orly is due to leave Rome/Fiumicino at 7:50 am on Friday, September 25. Meanwhile in France, final preparations continue ahead of the Pope's arrival: artisans from several regions have produced vestments and liturgical items for the celebrations, including recycled stoles made in Roanne for 5,000 altar servers, a special cross from Anjou, and altar cloths sewn by the Poor Clares of Troyes. Church bells across France will ring for seven minutes at the moment of the Pope's arrival in Paris. In recent days, some press outlets reported an alleged "chill" between the Vatican and the Élysée over how the visit should be framed: while the French presidency reportedly wanted to emphasize its institutional and diplomatic dimension, the Holy See favored the pastoral and apostolic dimension of the trip, centered on the faithful, young people and the sick, declining some of the more solemn elements proposed by Paris; underlying this is the distance between the Catholic Church and Macron's support for France's end-of-life law. Both the Élysée and the Vatican nonetheless rejected the idea of a diplomatic rift, confirming the program announced by the Holy See Press Office: meeting with President Macron and the authorities at the Élysée, an address at UNESCO, Vespers at Notre-Dame and a prayer vigil with young people at the Stade de France on September 25; Holy Mass in Paris on the 26th; a pilgrimage to Lourdes with a private meeting with abuse survivors on the 27th; an interreligious meeting and Holy Mass in Metz on the 28th, before returning to Rome that evening.