Pope Leo Attacks the Root of Left-Wing Radicalism in France

It was a small gesture with big historical, moral, and political impact.

During his visit to France, Pope Leo XIV stopped and prayed in front of a staircase at the Garden of the Carmelites on the campus of the Catholic University of Paris. Those stairs—just four small steps—are etched with the words, Hic Cicidereunt (“Here they fell,” as in, were killed, in Latin). Pretty flowers garlanded the gray stone as the Pope paused, and the cameras clicked and whirred.

Pope Leo XIV prays in front of a stele commemorating the martyrs of the September 2, 1792 massacres during the French Revolution, at the Catholic University of Paris, on September 26, 2026. (Simone Risoluti – Vatican Media/Getty Images)

The memorial honors events from September 1792, three years after the beginning of the French Revolution—a revolt directed at not only the royalty of King Louis XVI, but also especially at the Catholic Church.

In fact, the revolutionaries in their radicalism had gone so far as to cook up their own rival Cult of Reason. Yes, that’s really what they called it: Culte de la Raison; the specific ceremonies didn’t last, although many would say that secular humanism is, for sure, still thriving as a kind of religion or cult.

We can pause to observe: It’s okay to start a new belief, but if it begins by killing off adherents of other faiths, it’s in the zone of the Khmer Rouge and other murderous systems.

Describing the French plan to remake society, here’s how historian Christopher Hibbert recalls the events that Leo prayed over:

A gang of armed men burst into the garden of the Carmelite Convent off the Rue de Vaugirard where about 150 priests who had been held prisoner for the past fortnight, were gathered under guard . . . The men advanced upon them, calling out for the Archbishop of Arles. One of the priests went forward to meet them, demanding a fair trial for himself and his fellow-prisoners. A shot was fired and his shoulder was smashed. The Archbishop, after praying for a moment on his knees, then went towards the men himself. “I am the man you are looking for,” he said, and was immediately struck across the face with a sword. As he fell to the ground a pike was plunged through his chest.

Whereupon, all the rest of the clerics, too, were killed, their bodies thrown down in a heap. It’s a comfort knowing that long ago, the Church beatified these martyrs.

Illustration showing the slaughter of Catholic priests by a French Revolutionary mob during the September Massacres in Paris from September 2-6, 1792. (LTL/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Illustration showing the assassination of Catholic priest Jacques Francois Lefranc, who authored literary works against the Freemasons. He was brutally murdered by the French Revolutionary mob, after being arrested and imprisoned in the Carmelites prison in Paris, on September 2, 1792. (Bridgeman via Getty Images)

Illustration showing the execution of Abbot Ermes in the presence of Bishop de la Rochefoucauld and Lord Ruotet at the Carmelite convent on September 2, 1792. (Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Illustration of the September Massacres, where priests and noble prisoners were killed in Paris on September 2, 1792, during the French Revolution. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Illustration showing the mass executions of Catholic priests and nuns by drowning in the Loire River during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror in Nantes, France, between November 1793 and February 1794. Everyone arrested and imprisoned for failing to support the Revolution, or suspected of being a royalist sympathizer, especially Catholic priests and nuns, were thrown into the Loire River and drowned on the orders of Jean-Baptiste Carrier, the representative-on-mission in Nantes. (PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Stained glass window in the church of Saint-Honoré d’Eylau in Paris, depicting the 14 Carmelite nuns from Compiègne who were executed by guillotine in 1794 during the French Revolution. (Wikimedia Commons)

Illustration of the execution of Louis XVI in the Place de la Revolution on January 21, 1793. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Political cartoon depicting French Revolutionary Joseph Le Bon standing on a pile of decapitated bodies between two guillotines, drinking blood from one chalice as he fills another with the blood spewing from a freshly beheaded victim, circa 1795. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

At one level, Leo’s quiet deed at the Garden of the Carmelites was simple Christian decency—paying his respects to fellow faithful.

Yet at another level, Leo was challenging the French state. You see, even after the heat of the French Revolution had cooled, the dominant political leaders in France maintained their attitude of deep hostility to the Catholic Church. In a wave of legislation in the early 20th century, the government sought to crush religious influence. The state was no longer killing priests, it was merely outlawing most of their activities.

For the most part, this policy of laïcité, or secularity, has been in force ever since. In American terms, we might think of it as the ACLU in charge, overseeing churches and their flocks. (Interestingly, both the French state, and the ACLU, are much more tolerant of Islam than they of Christianity.)

But now comes the Pope. His whole visit, featuring spectacular pageantry, as well as up-close-and-personal missions, has provided an alternative vision of France, for the French. A vision of Christianity and its related traditions, not atheism with a carveout of favoritism for Islam.

And then there’s that homage to the martyrs—a direct rebuke to the murderous antecedents of French President Emmanuel Macron’s government, which today flies the same tricolour flag that inspired the 18th-century assassins. A rough equivalent in the U.S. would be if the Pope had come here and paid his respects at a memorial to the British Redcoats who fought against the Patriots in the American Revolution.

To drill his implicit critique further, the Pope celebrated a mass at the Place de la Concorde, formerly known as the Place de la Revolution, the very place where, during the revolutionary Reign of Terror, thousands of Christians were publicly executed.

Pope Leo XIV, with the Arc de Triomphe in the background, waves from the popemobile as he arrives to celebrate Mass in Place de la Concorde in Paris, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV waves to the crowd from the Popemobile as he rides down the Champs-Elysees Avenue to arrive to celebrate a solemn outdoor mass at Place de la Concorde on September 26, 2026, in Paris, France. (Tom Nicholson/Getty Images)

Pope Leo XIV blesses a child as he rides down the Champs-Elysees Avenue in the popemobile on his way to the Place de la Concorde, central Paris, on September 26, 2026, to celebrate a solemn outdoor mass. (Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images)

Pope Leo XIV greets a toddler as he arrives on popemobile at Place de la Concorde to celebrate a Mass on September 26, 2026, in Paris, France. (Simone Risoluti – Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)

View of the Champs-Élysées with a crowd of 800,000 people worshippers gathered along the Champs-Elysees Avenue to attend a solemn outdoor mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at Place de la Concorde, central Paris, on September 26, 2026. (Antoine Gyori – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

A photograph taken from the roof of the Arc de Triomphe shows worshippers gathered along the Champs-Elysees Avenue and the Place de l’Etoile to attend a solemn outdoor mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at Place de la Concorde, central Paris, on September 26, 2026. (Sameer AL-DOUMY / AFP via Getty Images)