Pope Leo XIV warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence during a visit to France

Pope Leo XIV warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence at the start of his four-day visit to France. Speaking to representatives of church and state at the Elysee Palace, he called for humanity to be prevented from “losing its humanity in the midst of a paradise of machines.”

Early on Friday morning, the pope was personally greeted at Paris Orly airport by President Emmanuel Macron, after which they held talks at the presidential residence.

The highlight of the visit is expected to be a huge mass in Paris on Saturday, which is expected to attract more than half a million people. For the service, an altar was erected on the Place de la Concorde, and the police blocked off a large area around the Champs-Elysees.

Large crowds of people are expected at other events during the pontiff's visit. In the Catholic Church, this interest is associated with a growing craving for spirituality among the French and residents of other European countries.

Disputes about the format of the visit

Macron will not attend the pontiff's masses, primarily due to France's strict principle of separation of church and state.

Instead, his wife Brigitte will attend the mass on the Champs-Elysees, as will Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu. Several candidates are also expected to be present in next year's presidential elections, including Marine Le Pen of the nationalist right, centrists Edouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal and conservative Bruno Retaillot.

On the eve of the visit, there were reports of disagreements between Macron and Vatican officials organizing the visit. The French president was allegedly unhappy that the trip was less ceremonial than he would have liked.

However, this week representatives of the Elysee Palace denied these reports. They said that a visiting head of state - and the Pope is the head of state - is traditionally offered various ceremonial events, for example, a cavalry escort along the Champs-Elysees. At the same time, according to them, no one expected that the pontiff would actually accept this proposal.

The Elysee Palace confirmed that Pope Leo XIV rejected Macron's offer to meet with the craftsmen involved in the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral after a devastating fire. The reason, as they explained there, was the pontiff’s too busy schedule.

Visit program

On Friday afternoon, the pope drove through the streets of Paris in the popemobile to Notre Dame de Paris, where many people had gathered since early morning. A meeting with young people is planned for the evening: 80 thousand people are expected to come to listen to the pontiff at the Stade de France.

On Sunday, about 150,000 people registered to attend mass at the pilgrimage center of Lourdes in the Pyrenees.

On Monday, the pope will travel to Metz in northeastern France, where he will pay tribute to Robert Schumann (1886-1963), one of the founding fathers of the European Union and a devout Catholic who is now a candidate for beatification.

In Paris, the pontiff will also meet with a group of migrants, and in Lourdes with some victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy.

French roots of Papa Leo

Pope Leo XIV was born in Chicago in 1955 and given the name Robert Francis Prevost at birth. His surname is of French origin.

His paternal grandmother was born in 1894 in Le Havre, Normandy. Many years later, having married an Italian in the United States, she and her husband took the surname Prevost, her mother’s maiden name.

France's relationship with the Roman Catholic Church has historically been difficult. For a long time, the country was called the “eldest daughter of the Church,” supposedly because it was the first kingdom to convert to Christianity. In reality, this is not so: earlier, Armenia, Georgia and Ethiopia adopted Christianity.

In the 14th century, the papal throne moved for a time to Avignon in the south of France. In subsequent centuries, French armies repeatedly intervened in Italian politics, where the popes were not only the heads of the Church, but also secular rulers.

Napoleon, for example, held two popes captive at different times.

All pontiffs of recent decades have visited France. John Paul II came there especially often - several times between 1980 and 2004.

Pope Francis visited France three times but avoided Paris, visiting instead Strasbourg, Marseille and Corsica.

Today France, like the rest of Europe, has become a much more secular country, with less than half of its population calling themselves Catholic.

The proportion of people who regularly attend religious services has fallen from 35% in 1960 to less than 5% today. The number of priests also fell sharply during this time: from 25 thousand in 1990 to less than 9 thousand—by almost two-thirds.