Pope Leo XIV said Mass on Sunday morning at Lourdes, the French shrine famous for its healing claims, in front of about 150,000 people. That afternoon, at the sanctuary's center for sick pilgrims, he called France's new assisted-dying law "false compassion" and said "what is legal is not necessarily moral." Parliament passed the law in July and President Emmanuel Macron signed it in August. Doctors can't act on it until the government publishes the implementing decrees. It's the second time in three days the Pope has gone after the law. On Friday at the Élysée, minutes after Macron welcomed him, he called the law, in French, "the offer of a programmed death." Macron didn't attend any of the Pope's Masses.

1. The Pope and the French Bishops: Killing Isn't Care, No Matter What the Law Says

Leo XIV says the sick aren't a burden. The bishops call the law a "grave rupture" and want palliative care instead.

He says the law confuses compassion with killing. At the Accueil Notre-Dame, the Lourdes center for sick pilgrims, he told patients and their caregivers to "reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion," and that "it is impossible to regard causing death as something normal." He aimed it straight at the sick people in front of him: "I want to tell you that you are not a burden." At the morning Mass he'd already condemned "current trends that seek to redefine the value of human life in illness, suffering and old age."

He says a law can't settle a moral question. "What is legal is not necessarily moral" drew sustained applause. He told the sick that "no human law should ever make you lose the certainty of your dignity," and that "medicine must never become the servant of programmed death." He urged the caregivers to build up palliative care and research instead.

The bishops made the same argument in July, in harsher terms. Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, the archbishop of Marseille who leads the French bishops' conference, and two vice-presidents put out a statement the evening the law passed. They said the day "marks a grave rupture in the history of our country," and that the choice "breaks with the long tradition of care." They warned that poor elderly people could feel pressure to end their lives. They also said other countries show the eligibility rules only get wider over time, and palliative care pays the price. Bishop Matthieu Rougé of Nanterre, one of the bishops' spokesmen on end-of-life issues, said in January that real fraternity comes through "accompaniment, the best possible," rather than "a lethal act."

2. Right-to-Die Advocates: France Isn't a Theocracy, So the Church Should Respect the Law

Denis Labayle of Le Choix says religions can have opinions, but parliament decides. ADMD wants the decrees out now.

They say the Church can preach, but parliament decides. Denis Labayle, honorary president of the right-to-die association Le Choix, answered the Pope's Élysée speech on Saturday: "We are not in a theocracy, we are in a secular Republic, and the Catholic Church has to respect the law." Religions "have their place" and "should give their opinion," he said, but "it's up to society, to secularism, to decide according to the majority of deputies."

They say most Catholics are with them. Labayle pointed to a 2018 Ifop poll in which 72% of practicing Catholics backed legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide, along with 89% of the public.

They want the government to publish the decrees. The Association for the Right to Die with Dignity, known as ADMD, held its annual assembly in Nîmes on Saturday, the same day as the Paris Mass. Its members demanded rapid implementation of the new end-of-life laws, and its president, Jonathan Denis, called the assisted-dying law "historic." Olivier Falorni, the former deputy who wrote the bill and is now mayor of La Rochelle, said in August that it was "a major advance that is finally becoming a reality."

3. Macron's Government: He Can Say What He Likes, and the Law Stands

Macron says secularism isn't hostility to religion, and everyone can believe what they want "provided they respect the laws." His health minister is aiming to apply the law in early 2027.

The president set the terms before the Pope spoke. Macron welcomed Leo to the Élysée on Friday and said French secularism "is in no way the negation of religion." The Republic lets everyone believe or not believe, in private and in public, he said, "provided they respect the laws." He'd promised the assisted-dying law in his 2022 campaign. When the Constitutional Council cleared it in August, he called the debate that produced it "exemplary."

Everybody's in their role, says the Assembly's president. Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the National Assembly and a defender of the law, took the Élysée speech that way. She said it was "important that the pope can express deeply what he feels and believes," and that "each person is in their role, he is in his, with his convictions."

The president skipped every Mass. Macron didn't go to Saturday's Mass at the Place de la Concorde or any other papal service. The Élysée said Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Brigitte Macron would represent him. Afterward he posted praise for "a monumental Mass." Lecornu, Senate president Gérard Larcher, Braun-Pivet and a row of former prime ministers sat in the stands.

The decrees are coming, on the government's schedule. Health Minister Stéphanie Rist's office said in July that work had begun "to permit application at the start of 2027, in legally solid and fully secure conditions," and as of last week that was still the timetable. At least three decrees and a pricing order are still pending, and the national health authority is due to deliver its recommendations before the end of the year.

Where This Lands

The Pope says a law can make assisted dying legal but can't make it moral. The bishops call it a grave rupture with the tradition of care. Right-to-die groups say parliament decides in a secular Republic, and most Catholics agree with them. They want the government to publish the decrees. Macron's government says the Pope is free to speak, the law stands, and the government is aiming to have the decrees out in early 2027. Until then, nobody in France can use the law the Pope just condemned.

Sources