Léon XIV urges new French baptized not to be Christians “of convenience”

For a few hundred French people, their participation in the jubilee of young people will have started in a very special way: with a meeting with Pope Leo XIV. While this jubilee is held from this Monday, July 29, to Rome on Monday, July 29, the Pope received French catechumens and neophytes (recent baptized) for an audience in the Vatican.

In a speech delivered in French – a language that the new pope masters without speaking it quite commonly – Léon XIV was delighted with the presence of these young people in the jubilee and within the Church. “What a joy to see young people who engage in faith and want to give meaning to their lives, letting themselves be guided by Christ and his Gospel !,” He exclaimed. “The church needs your beautiful testimony of faith, continued the pontiff, because (you are) full members of the great family of God.”

But, he warned, the path does not stop with baptism, but continues “throughout life.” Otherwise, there is the risk of becoming “Christians of convenience, habit or comfort.” The new baptized must in turn become “missionary disciples”. “Live your faith in a concrete way”, “do not discourage yourself” even if “the path can be long and sometimes difficult,” encouraged Léon XIV.

“Give up a culture of death”

For him, the “beautiful testimony of faith” of these young people who choose to join the Church, is all the more necessary since baptism “commits to renouncing a very present culture of death in our society”. Faced with “indifference, contempt for others, drugs, the search for an easy life, sexuality that becomes entertainment and chosification of the human person, injustice”, Leon XIV therefore asks young people baptized to live as “salt of the earth and light of the world”.

According to Father Christophe Le Sourt, secretary general of the Conference of Bishops of France, this meeting with the Pope in a room in the Saint-Pierre Basilica was a “magnificent moment of fervor”. The Pope’s speech was an invitation “to be transformed by the Word of Christ”, he reacted on X (ex-Twitter) at the end of this audience he attended.

Some 600 young French people were present for this moment around the recently elected Pope. About fifty young people baptized from other European countries – Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland – also participated.

The young people must now continue with a large mass on Saint-Pierre square this evening Tuesday, July 29. The participants will find Pope Leo XIV for a prayer vigil on Saturday August 2, before a mass celebrated by the pontiff the next day. These two events will take place in Tor Vergata, a large place in the Roman suburbs.