METZ, France (AP) — Pope Leo XIV urged Europe on Monday to draw from its Christian roots and traditions of dialogue to blunt the “desire for domination” driving today's wars, as he wrapped up a visit to France by recalling the forces that contributed to Europe’s post-World War II peaceful integration.
Leo traveled to the eastern city of Metz, near the border with Luxembourg and Germany, to honor Robert Schuman, a French Catholic statesman regarded
as one of the founding fathers of European unity.
Leo decided to end his four-day visit to France in Metz, at a conference center named for Schuman, to drive home his appeal. He wants Europe to draw from its Christian foundations and traditions to respond Russia’s war in Ukraine and other conflicts.
He said international law and multilateralism "constitute the best antidote to the desire for domination, which lies at the root of every conflict. Today, relations between individuals and States are becoming increasingly uncivilized.”
Élysée Palace had invited all European Union heads of state and the heads of European institutions to attend the conference, but only a handful joined President Emmanuel Macron, from smaller states such as Monaco, Andorra and Luxembourg.
Leo’s visit to the once staunchly Catholic and officially secular France has been marked by his appeal for Europe to remember its Christian heritage and apply it to today’s ethical and geopolitical challenges.
On Sunday at the Catholic shrine in Lourdes, he condemned legislation — recently approved in France — permitting medically assisted dying as “false compassion.” Huge crowds have met him at nearly every turn — 800,000 were at Leo’s Mass on Paris’ iconic Place de la Concorde — surprising even organizers.
On Monday morning, Leo's Air France charter received a military escort of two French fighter jets for the flight from Lourdes to Metz.
Later Monday in his final event in France, Leo was to celebrate Mass in the cathedral of St. Stephen in Metz. The cathedral is one of the greatest examples of French Gothic style, with its soaring vaults and stained-glass windows, some of which were designed by the 20th century Jewish artist Marc Chagall.
The colored glass has given the cathedral the nickname the “Lanterne du Bon Dieu,” or “The Good Lord’s Lantern.”
Schuman is best known for the Schuman Declaration of 1950, five years after the war ended. It proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community to pool production between historic rivals France and Germany.
The idea, as Europe was emerging from the ruins of World War II, was guided by the belief that intertwined economic interests would make another war between them “not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.”
The coal and steel organization was the first among European institutions that were precursors to what eventually became the European Union.
A resistance fighter imprisoned by the Nazis, Schuman was declared “venerable” in 2021, a step in the Catholic Church's process toward possible sainthood.
In a separate meeting Monday, Leo urged French religious leaders to preach messages of peace and unity. He cited Schuman’s example of promoting dialogue even among rivals in saying faith leaders had a shared responsibility to forge friendships across borders in the name of peace.
“Indeed, to invoke God’s name in order to justify violence or oppression is to profane that name,” he said. “Religious discourse must constantly call for the disarmament of hearts and words.”
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