A report published in Catholic media this week, citing anonymous sources, claimed that Pope Leo XIV has personally contacted French President Emmanuel Macron repeatedly to encourage him to oppose a bill that would expand the legality of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Pope Leo has made opposing the legalization of killing people who are terminally ill or enduring significant health challenges a priority of his papacy since being elected in 2025, and bishops in France have encouraged lawmakers in the National Assembly and Senate not to approve a bill expanding euthanasia. Shortly before a final vote on a euthanasia bill on Wednesday, French Bishop Marc Aillet announced that any lawmakers voting for the bill should be denied access to Holy Communion as they are committing a mortal sin and must repent.
French lawmakers in the National Assembly are scheduled to vote on Wednesday on a final passage of the euthanasia bill. The vote has not occurred at press time.
The Catholic news organization AdVaticanum published a report on Monday stating that its sources shared that the earthly head of the Catholic Church “held regular direct calls with President Emmanuel Macron in an effort to slow France’s euthanasia bill.”
“The intervention has taken place through quiet but consistent channels. While sources could not confirm exactly when it began, Pope Leo XIV is said to have initiated a series of direct communications with Emmanuel Macron,” the outlet claimed, describing their communication as a series of “regular 15-minute phone calls” with Macron about euthanasia and assisted suicide. The report claimed that the pope was specifically interested in discussing how Macron could slow the progress of the euthanasia bill and claimed the pope used as a negative example the situation in Canada, where the legalization of “medical assistance in dying” (MAID) homicides is estimated to have killed as many as 100,000 people, many for dubious “health” reasons.
The report describing Pope Leo’s alleged advocacy echoes how the pontiff approached similar legislation to expand the killing of patients in Illinois, his home state, last year. Illinois passed a law in December allowing for medically assisted killing, which the pope described as a disappointment and revealed that he had personally reached out to Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker asking him not to sign it.
“We were very clear about the necessity to respect the sacredness of life from the very beginning to the very end, and unfortunately, for different reasons, he decided to sign that bill,” Pope Leo said at the time. “I am very disappointed about that.”
Pope Leo briefly addressed the debate over euthanasia in France in June, urging leaders in the country to respect the “intrinsic dignity of every human person.”
“Our world struggles to find value in human life, even in its final hour,” he said in a French-language message on June 4.
The church within France has also been active in promoting Pope Leo’s message against the expansion of euthanasia. On Tuesday, Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron stated that lawmakers who vote to expand the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide should not be allowed to take the Eucharist, as supporting anti-Catholic laws creates a “real problem of ecclesial coherence.” The statement has followed months of public outcry from Church leaders in France against the legislation.
The euthanasia bill has been highly controversial in France. It had passed the National Assembly three times and was rejected three times in the Senate before Wednesday, the last time in early July by a narrow margin. French law allows for a final vote in the National Assembly to approve or reject a law if it goes back and forth from the chambers of Parliament three times, leading to the vote on Wednesday.
The bill would allow doctors or nurses to kill patients in limited circumstances or to help a patient kill themselves. It is less expansive than the Canadian MAID policy, limited to French citizens who suffer from serious and incurable physical conditions. It explicitly does not allow for the killing of mental health patients, who form a substantial percentage of MAID victims in Canada.
Pope Leo has met Macron personally on several occasions since assuming the papacy, most recently in April at the Vatican. The two exchanged gifts and reportedly discussed “France’s willingness to work jointly with the Holy See” on issues of world peace; neither side mentioned euthanasia as a topic of conversation. While an explicitly secular government today, France was once one of the world’s most influential Catholic nations prior to the Revolution that ousted religion from the public square in that country. Among the gifts Macron reportedly gave Pope Leo during his visit was a book about the reconstruction of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after a fire destroyed much of the medieval masterpiece in 2019.
The Vatican announced in May that Pope Leo will visit France from September 25 to 28 for a visit described as an “apostolic journey” after being invited by Macron.