Pope Leo XIV on Friday begins a four-day visit to France, where the Catholic Church's views on abortion and euthanasia run counter to the values of a secular country that recently enshrined abortion in its constitution and gave final approval to a bill establishing the right to assisted dying.
When an ailing Pope John Paul II visited the French shrine at Lourdes in 2004, on his last foreign trip, he delivered a forceful condemnation of abortion and euthanasia as he gasped for air during Mass.