‘You Are All Welcome,’ Pope Tells Press in Rebuff to Trump Media Bans

In his latest rebuttal to President Trump, the Pope took a shot at his recent efforts to bar news agencies from the White House, telling reporters Friday morning he was “very happy” to have them aboard the papal flight from Rome to Paris. “I am very happy that here, you are all welcome,” Pope Leo XIV said, according to NBC News, stressing the importance of solid, comprehensive coverage. It is important, he told reporters, “that we have it all the way around, for everyone.”The response comes after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore White House press credentials for CNN MS NOW and Politico on Thursday, finding that stories the president said raised national security concerns instead represented “routine” reporting. The Holy Father also apologized to the press corps aboard Friday’s Alitalia charter for missing his regular in-flight press conference during his last international trip. Back in June, the plane in which the entourage was supposed to fly from Spain’s Canary Islands back to Rome broke down. The pope returned home aboard the King of Spain’s private plane, while six dozen reporters had to wait for another ride. When the pope landed Friday at Paris’s Orly airport, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife were waiting on the tarmac. Pope Leo was welcomed with military honors and by nuns and families in T-shirts bearing the slogan of the trip: “Pour que le monde ait la vie,” or “So the world may have life.”In speeches at the Elysée Palace, Mr. Macron and Pope Leo both highlighted his ancestral ties to France. The first American pope carries French Creole ancestry through his mother. Both men spoke of their “joy” at the visit, which Mr. Macron said would bring “hope” to many in France, and celebrated the recently completed restoration of Notre Dame cathedral, which burned down in 2019. The jewel of gothic architecture originally took almost two centuries to build before its completion in 1345. Its reconstruction took five and a half years, thanks in part to massive funding infusions from France’s government, private donors and the Church.“It showed that something considered irreparably destroyed can be reborn through mutual cooperation, and it bore eloquent witness to the unity born of commitment to a common cause,” Pope Leo said in remarks delivered in French.On Friday, the Vicar of Christ addressed several phenomena he sees as risks to the dignity of human life in both French society and around the world, starting with artificial intelligence. In every age, the Pope said, quoting his most recent encyclical Magnifca Humanitas, technological progress has “revealed the ambiguity of tools that can cause harm when not oriented toward the good,” at the risk of creating what French author Georges Bernanos called a “Paradise of Machines.”“If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a ‘paradise of machines’ invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good,” he said, calling to avoid the “self-delusion” that comes with the growing tendency to expect “science to eliminate or alleviate every form of suffering.”The pope also made the case for protecting the “diversity of consciences” in a truly free secular state and the place of Catholic education in France’s educational landscape. A recent directive calling for French Catholic schools — which receive state funding and are obligated to follow the national curriculum — to replace regular classes on September 25 with lessons focused on Pope Leo and the church sparked debate in France, where the competing principles of secular governance and freedom of religion often conflict.But without “a deeper wisdom” guiding science and technology, such tools can offer “immediate solutions that apparently address people’s wishes and their pain,” but which “seriously divert them from the greater good to which they aspire,” the pope said. The pope pointed to “profit-driven ventures” promoting genetic manipulation, surrogacy, human organs trafficking and “the possibility of arranging one’s own death” as sources of concern. France enacted a law allowing medically-assisted suicide last month. “Let us not forget that mutual respect and the protection of every human life is a duty incumbent upon each and every one of us,” he said.The pope emphasized the centrality of respect for all humanity in remarks at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization later in the day, before he received a rockstar’s welcome as he attended vespers at Notre Dame.Ahead of the trip, the pope declined Mr. Macron’s invitation to accompany the president on a private tour of the cathedral, which is owned by France. Pope Leo also refused a state dinner and ceremony where Mr. Macaron would award him La Grand-Croix de la Légion d’honneur, France’s highest civilian honor. On Friday afternoon, the pope kissed a relic of Christ’s crown of thorns in the gleaming new Notre Dame and spoke of the day in 2019 when the “whole world watched with bated breath as the cathedral burned in an inescapable blaze,” a moment that was itself a reminder of “human impotence in the face of the immeasurable” as well as the medieval structure’s significance of beyond the Church. From the church’s beginnings, the pope said in his third remarks delivered in French of the day, cathedrals have served “a place of welcome, respect, revelation, and meaning for all.”As of press time Friday, young adults were pouring into the Stade de France to see the Holy Father, with an audience of 80,000 expected. French Christian music acts including rapper Tagra and pop ensemble Les Guetteurs opened for the Bishop of Rome.

‘You Are All Welcome,’ Pope Tells Press in Rebuff to Trump Media Bans

‘You Are All Welcome,’ Pope Tells Press in Rebuff to Trump Media Bans

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