September 28, 2026 - Pope Leo XIV in-flight press conference on his return from France
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Speaker 5
Grazie, Siria. La seconda domanda, Santità, è di Xavier Lenormand, che lavora per la rivista francese Le Pèlerin.
Xavier Lenormand
Très Saint-Père, bonsoir. Tout d'abord, je voulais vous remercier pour votre voyage apostolique en France. Pendant quatre jours, notre pays a vécu au rythme de l'enthousiasme général suscité par votre venue, ce qui en France est un exploit. Merci, Très Saint-Père. I will continue with my question in English.
The motto of your apostolic journey was "That the world may have life". The topic of end-of-life care came up repeatedly in your speeches. Actually, I think you mentioned it in more than half of your speeches in France. I'm thinking in particular of the one in the Élysée Palace and yesterday in Lourdes, when you said that what is legal is not necessarily moral, which was a clear reference to the recent legalization of euthanasia in France. In France, we also have this principle of laïcité, which is a separation between religion and politics.
Do you think that when it's important, when the stakes are high, this border, this line should be crossed in the name of the primacy of conscience? And if so, did you cross that line?
Speaker 4
Well, thank you for your question. I would say that the understanding that the church has of a separation between church and politics, or church and state, that I didn't cross it. And that I'd invite you to read or re-read Magnificum Manitas, where I speak about the social doctrine of the church in the first section, the first couple of chapters, and say that when the church speaks about defending life, when speaks about questions of social doctrine, we're not entering into politics, we're applying the gospel to people's lives. And they can be politicians, if you will, on the left or on the right, situations where they say no religion should only be in the private sphere, let people do what they want on their own, but that as a state we have to be separate. By the very fact that when I went to France, I went primarily to preach the gospel, to preach the good news, to reaffirm what Jesus Christ himself says when he says "I am the way and the truth and the life", and so to speak the truth that Jesus offers us.
The defense of life is something that as you all know the church teaches and believes very deeply. And so on the one hand obviously knowing that in France a law was recently approved, in other countries in Europe as well as other parts of the world, there is a lot of debating going on about the questions of end of life issues. But being in a place especially like Lourdes where people are searching for something much deeper and understanding that their lives even in the midst of sickness or disability or pain of different kinds that their life has meaning, the church because of Jesus himself wants to be close to those people and to affirm the values that that life itself I think holds for all of us. So I would say if that's politics I did that but it was not to get involved in French politics. It was to teach what the church really believes.
Speaker 5
Grazie Santità, la prossima domanda è di Iñigo Domínguez de El País che è qui accanto a me.
Iñigo Domínguez
Buenas tardes Santità, gracias por compartir este momento con nosotros. Le hablo en español. Usted ha hablado muchas veces también en este viaje de la cultura del descarte que nos rodea, de la marginación de quienes no se consideran productivos, entre ellos los ancianos, los discapacitados. En España tenemos en estos días un caso que representa un poco todo esto y que ha causado una gran indignación en el país que es el de Mari Carmen, una mujer de 87 años con discapacidad a la que han echado de su casa en la que vivía en Madrid porque no conseguía pagar el alquiler, se lo subieron cinco veces de golpe, ¿no? No sé si conoce este caso, el caso de Mari Carmen, pero en cualquier caso ¿qué opina del problema de la vivienda que existe en toda Europa, en todo el mundo, donde la especulación inmobiliaria expulsa a los vecinos de las ciudades y los jóvenes no pueden permitirse una casa, ¿no?
¿Qué opina de todo este problema?
Speaker 12
Yo creo que es un buen ejemplo donde la iglesia como comunidad o como seres humanos como comunidad aun para personas que no tienen fe tenemos que buscar soluciones más justas para que no sucedan estos casos. No conozco el caso al cual usted se refiere pero me parece que sería un caso donde los vecinos, la comunidad, la parroquia, la diócesis o el estado tendría que acercarse a decir cómo es posible que un caso así suceda. ¿Cuál es el problema en el sistema que permite un caso de una anciana además con discapacidad o con alguna dificultad sea echada por decir de su casa? La iglesia habla mucho del descarte y habla también de justicia, invita, promueve, busca digamos despertar en todos la capacidad de responder con un sentido más de ser humano, de ser de verdad sensible al dolor, sufrimiento de los demás. El problema de la casa que existe en muchos países hoy es un problema que solo una parroquia, solo una diócesis o la iglesia misma no podrá solucionar.
Pero creo que ahí hay un desafío grande donde tenemos que quizás exigir también a los líderes políticos, a las autoridades a buscar solución a eso porque está aumentando evidentemente.
Speaker 13
a buscar solución a eso porque está aumentando evidentemente y muchas veces reaccionamos solo al momento de emergencia pero tenemos que ver en realidad cuál es la causa sistémica de este problema y cómo ayudar.
Speaker 5
Gracias Iñigo. Gracias Santidad. La próxima pregunta es de Emanuela Tulli de l'agenzia Ansa.
Emanuela Tulli
Buonasera Santità. Lei oggi e comunque durante tutto questo viaggio ha sottolineato la necessità del dialogo e anche parlando all'Europa lei ha detto ha parlato dell'illusione del riarmo. Ecco ma allo stesso tempo ha detto di avere il coraggio di fare delle rinunce dei sacrifici per il bene superiore della pace. Il conflitto in Europa è quello tra Russia e Ucraina. Cosa intendeva quando parlava di questi sacrifici?
E poi lei crede nel negoziato perché ai suoi inviati è andato prima Monsignor Gallagher in questi giorni c'è il Cardinal Zuppi ma come si può parlare con uno stato che aggredisce bombarda e minaccia non solo l'Ucraina ma anche altri stati europei? Grazie Santità.
Speaker 12
Gracias. La primera cosa sería subrayar lo que son digamos los principios de la doctrina social de la Iglesia donde buscamos no promover la violencia el odio armamentos los peligros que hay en el mundo de hoy incluso de algunos líderes de países que de nuevo empiezan a hablar de armas nucleares de guerras que cada vez son más y más destructivas sobre todo por la cuestión de la vida humana. Continuar a armar a gastar en esa tremenda industria militar que es ya desde hace muchas décadas no del año pasado hace cinco años que continúa a promover esa digamos este el gasto militar algunos pocos se están enriqueciendo muchísimo con una industria que promueve la guerra cuando con estos miles de millones de millones de euros o dólares se podría solucionar problemas como el hambre en el mundo la casa situaciones de desempleo etcétera etcétera. Todos están buscando una voz que pueda ofrecer otro camino que no es lo de vamos a gastar más en las armas que solo promueve más y más la tensión que podría resultar en la explosión de otra guerra otro conflicto. Y vemos que la violencia que esas potencias que buscan siempre imponer con poder en vez de dialogar y promover negociaciones por las diferencias que naturalmente pueden existir pues vamos siempre más y más cerca a una guerra o varias guerras conflictos como encontramos en el mundo de hoy.
Yo no sé de otros y no es por ser político no político pero una voz que trata de promover los valores de la dignidad humana de la importancia de la vida de la posibilidad de quizás gastar más en salud y educación y menos en las armas creo que la Iglesia tiene una responsabilidad de promover esos valores invitando continuamente a líderes como de Rusia y Ucrania otros países a venir a sentarse a dialogar a buscar cómo solucionar los problemas sin continuar esas guerras que ya no tienen sentido. Entonces en ese sentido la Iglesia continúa alzando la voz. No podemos obligar a nadie a veces parece que puede ser inútil pero vamos a seguir hablando vamos a seguir invitando vamos a seguir anunciando el Evangelio.
Speaker 11
Gracias Santidad. La próxima pregunta viene de Justin McLellan del National Catholic Reporter.
Justin McLellan
Thank you, Holy Father. I'll ask my question in English. In Paris, you spoke on the urgent need for ethical discernment around the development of artificial intelligence. And in the wake of multiple cyberattacks committed by rogue AI agents, several tech industry leaders have warned that the technology could destroy the world. How worried are you that AI could pose catastrophic risks to humanity or even wipe it out entirely?
And what must nations, especially the United States and China, do to ensure that their technologies are safe for humanity? Thank you.
Thank you.
Speaker 4
If someone were to ask me, am I in panic mode? No, I'm not. I sleep at night. I do think that the concerns raised by many of the experts, specialists in AI, should be taken seriously. I don't think that that is fake news, as some have said, to try and cause whether financial or some other kind of benefit.
It's interesting to note that just today I read that the head of NVIDIA claims that he has found some way of inserting into AI certain guardrails, if you will, or limits so that they won't go outside of their particular units and cause the damage that people are talking about. He's the same one, however, that says there should be no limits placed and no government regulation, etc., etc. This is a problem that I think we need to sit down and talk about. We need to continue to invite political leaders, the leaders of AI, social organizations, associations, to come together and look at what is happening already and what could be down the road. To simply say, oh, it's not going to happen, and close our eyes to it, I think is probably not the most responsible way to go about that.
The Vatican has organized our own commission on artificial intelligence, which on the one hand, if you will, began as a way of coordinating what we ourselves are doing in the Holy See and how we're using AI and what the risks are and what the benefits are. But since Magnific Humanitas was published, we have received many contacts from people in many different areas and fields. And so we are trying to continue to promote dialogue, study, investigation, to find ways to make sure that AI does not get to a point where it could destroy humanity or remove humanity from the conversation. I am relatively optimistic that that can happen. I think that people, there are enough people seriously interested in that and willing to look at that outside of the questions, once again, of power, who gets there first, what happens when AI goes to being what they call general artificial intelligence, etc., etc.
But we have to keep working. We can't just sit back and pretend nothing's going to happen.
Speaker 5
Grazie Santità, grazie. Forse possiamo fare un'ultima domanda e Ludwig Ring-Eifel dell'agenzia di stampa cattolica tedesca.
Ludwig Ring-Eifel
I'll do another question in English. Today we were in Metz, very close to the German border. But so far you have not come to Germany yet. So my basic question is, when can we expect you on the other side of the border? And on the background of two developments which are maybe worrying you as well, the steady decline of Catholic Church in Germany and the astonishing rise of extremist parties in Germany who threaten to tear up the consensus for Europe which you spoke about today in Metz.
Speaker 4
Thank you for that question. With all humility, I'll say it's only been about 15 months that I've been Pope.
Speaker 3
There's many places I have not yet visited. I do have an invitation. I do hope to go again, I mean I've been there before, but not as Pope, but I do hope to visit Germany as I hope to visit many places. I do not yet have a schedule. I'm still working on next year and the only trip definitely planned is World Youth Day in Korea.
So we're getting there, but thank you for your patience and for the question. The phrase you said, the church is dying in Germany or the diminishing numbers, people have said that about France in the past and yet we saw what happened over the past four days. I believe that if we find the true missionary spirit and the right way to go about it, there are still many, many people in Germany who want to live and celebrate their Christian and Catholic faith. And so I'm optimistic about that, although I recognize the problems, I recognize the different causes that have hit the church very hard, but it's hit the, if you will, the evangelical or Protestant church very hard as well, and it has hit society in much the same way. But I do hope to reach out.
I do hope to continue to work with leaders in the church in Germany to find ways to respond to that. It would be interesting to study, analyze if and how there may be a relationship, for example, in the growth of these groups on the far right, and even the far right is being splintered now as you see one particular group is becoming even much more extreme with other so-called far-right groups. At the same time with some expression of a combination of these far-right points of view with a certain kind of religion, which in not only my view, but I think both the leaders of the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church in Germany have spoken out about that's not an authentic expression of Christianity. And again, we can go back to the values of the Gospel, which are not about hatred and division, but they're about understanding and compassion and accompanying. I hope deeply and hopefully the church can also be a part of this, that we can find ways of, if you will, reaching out to a majority of people of good will who will understand how important that their commitment, even in terms of participating in political processes, will enable them to make clear choices for the common good and not for extremist ideas that perhaps will do much more damage than we are even aware of right now.
So I think we will all be encouraging in that sense, again on our part as a church, social doctrine of the church, talking about, teaching about, preaching about what we believe are these life-giving values and not destruction, division, and hatred.
Grazie Santità, grazie per le sue parole, per la sua disponibilità e grazie molte per questi giorni di viaggio insieme.
Okay, thank you all again for your service. And I want to take the opportunity to thank so many people who are in the background that don't get the applause that the Pope gets when he goes by, but were very much a part of putting this trip together, both people in the Holy See, the people in France, the bishops in France, many, many lay people who worked on the different activities, organizing them. So to say a special word of gratitude to all of them and to you. Thank you very much.