Pope Leo puts human dignity before machines in France

Pope Leo XIV boarded an ITA Airways A321 at Rome’s Fiumicino airport at 7:58 a.m. The plane landed at Paris Orly at 9:56 a.m. Church bells tolled across France when the flight touched down.

President Emmanuel Macron greeted him on arrival. The four-day Apostolic Journey runs Sept. 25-28 through Paris, Lourdes and Metz. It is the first official papal visit to France in 18 years; the last was Benedict XVI’s in September 2008. The motto is “That the world may have life.”

Under a clear blue sky the pope crossed central Paris in the popemobile. Balconies and sidewalks were decked in Vatican yellow and white. The Vatican estimated 300,000 people along the route. He blessed the forehead of a little girl hoisted above the crowd. People rushed forward to kiss his hand before he entered Notre-Dame, the first pontiff inside the renovated cathedral after the 2019 fire.

Terry Spytek, 83, had come from the United States for a three-second look. “I feel it right here, in my heart,” she told AFP. “I feel very touched even if it was a very quick glance.”

At the Élysée Palace Leo met Macron privately, then addressed authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps. He said technology must serve people and be guided by ethical judgment. “If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good.” He warned that measuring human worth by efficiency risks dehumanization.

Those words landed in a country where a survey last year found only about five percent of 69 million residents attend Catholic church regularly. Infant christenings have declined. Teenage and adult baptisms are rising. Up to a million people were expected at Paris events over the first two days.

The UNESCO stop was the first papal visit to the organization in more than 40 years. John Paul II spoke there on June 2, 1980. Leo’s program ran in Rooms I and II, at the invitation of Director-General Khaled El-Enany. “While ‘intelligence’ is attributed to computational systems, we struggle to recognize the inalienable dignity of human persons,” the pope said. “Meaning is the oxygen of the mind.”

He quoted UNESCO’s 1945 Constitution: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” He added, “Peace cannot be built by treaties alone.” Peace, he said, is not a balance of power. He called for nuclear weapons to be banned and urged dialogue and diplomacy, including in the Middle East. He asked France to remain a tireless champion of peace and multilateralism.

“We are all born naked and in need,” he said. “Information is abundant, but it is not synonymous with wisdom.” On human coexistence he offered a plain contrast: “Communion in no way suppresses diversity. Rather, it enables diversity to flourish in the harmony of voices and faces.”