Pope to visit largely secular French flock

VATICAN CITY-When Pope Benedict XVI travels to France Sept. 12-15 to mark the 150th anniversary of the shrine to the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, he is likely to stress a major theme of his pontificate: revival of Europe’s Christian roots. In France, he will find a nominally Catholic country where relatively few attend Mass, yet […]

VATICAN CITY-When Pope Benedict XVI travels to France Sept. 12-15 to mark the 150th anniversary of the shrine to the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, he is likely to stress a major theme of his pontificate: revival of Europe’s Christian roots. In France, he will find a nominally Catholic country where relatively few attend Mass, yet which has recently spawned some of the church’s most enthusiastic lay movements, and whose president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has questioned the country’s strict separation of church and state. Benedict’s lecture to hundreds of fellow intellectuals in Paris is expected to be a major statement of his views on the relationship between modern culture and faith.

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