Pope Leo XIV will use the final day of his visit to France on Monday to pay tribute to Robert Schuman – the French foreign minister who was one of the architects of European integration – in a message expected to focus on peace, unity and the principles that shaped post-war Europe.
The Pope will travel to Metz on Monday, where he is due to attend an interfaith gathering and address a conference entitled “At the roots of Europe, for peace and unity”.
The choice of the eastern French city is closely linked to Schuman, who helped lay the foundations of what would become the European Union, and spent much of his life in the Moselle region.
The visit comes as Europe faces war at its borders in Ukraine, geopolitical tensions and growing concern over disinformation and political division within the EU – giving fresh resonance to Schuman’s belief that lasting peace depended on practical cooperation between former rivals.
Shaped by shifting borders
Born in Luxembourg in 1886, Schuman grew up in a region repeatedly shaped by shifts between French and German rule. He was born a German citizen and became French after the First World War, when Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France.
A lawyer by training, he settled in Metz in 1912 and entered French politics after the war, winning election as an MP for Moselle in 1919.
His wartime record was complex. In 1940, as a member of parliament, he joined the large majority that voted to grant full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain. Later that year he was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis. He escaped, went into hiding and became involved in the French Resistance.
After the war, he returned to national politics and held a series of senior posts under the Fourth Republic, including prime minister and foreign minister. He later became president of the European Parliamentary Assembly.
But it was the declaration he delivered on 9 May 1950 that secured his place in European history.
Inspired by French planner Jean Monnet, Schuman proposed pooling French and German coal and steel production under a common authority. The idea led to the European Coal and Steel Community, bringing together France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and creating the first building block of today’s European Union.
“World peace cannot be safeguarded without creative efforts commensurate with the dangers that threaten it,” the declaration said. It also argued that Europe would be built through “concrete achievements” that created genuine solidarity between states.
'Heroic virtue'
Schuman lived from 1926 until his death in 1963 in Scy-Chazelles, a village overlooking Metz, where his former home is now a museum. It was there that he worked on the declaration that would become a founding text of European integration.
A nearby centre traces Franco-German reconciliation and the development of the European project.
Pope Leo’s visit is also closely tied to Schuman’s Catholic faith. A lifelong bachelor who once considered becoming a priest, he was known for combining a deeply personal religious conviction with public service.
In 2021, Pope Francis recognised Schuman as having lived a life of “heroic virtue”, granting him the title of Venerable – an important step in the Catholic Church’s process towards possible beatification. Leo is not expected to visit Schuman’s grave at the Church of Saint-Quentin in Scy-Chazelles, as Church officials say the Pope does not want the visit to be seen as interfering with the beatification process, which would require recognition of a miracle attributed to Schuman’s intercession.
French bishops maintain Pope Leo’s visit to Metz is intended to encourage Europe to return to the principles set out in Schuman’s 1950 declaration – reconciliation, solidarity and the prevention of conflict.
(with newswires)
