These French saints and mystics are Pope Leo XIV’s “influencers”

In the book, the friar proposes a spirituality of simplicity. He invites readers to remain continually in God’s presence, even during the most ordinary tasks. Responding to journalists who were seeking “to understand who Prevost is,” the Pontiff highlighted this “very simple book.” He noted that it has guided him for many years by teaching a form “of prayer and spirituality where one simply gives his life to the Lord and allows the Lord to lead.”

This reference is far from isolated. During this early period of his pontificate, Leo XIV has frequently relied on French spiritual heritage. Like his predecessors, he finds resources in the country's religious history to address great contemporary concerns such as mission, peace, education, charity, and the spiritual life.

The search for peace and its corollary, interreligious dialogue, are major priorities for Leo XIV. The cardinals elected him on May 8, 2025, the feast day of the 19 blessed martyrs of Algeria. Following his election, the Pope quickly expressed his esteem for Father Christian de Chergé. The priest served as prior of the Trappist monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria before being slain alongside six of his brothers in 1996.

Leo XIV wrote the preface for The Power of the Gospel, a collection of texts published a few months after his election. In it, he highlighted a meditation written by the French monk while the Trappist community lived under the threat of armed Islamist groups. “Do I have the right to ask, ‘disarm him,’ if I do not begin by asking: ‘Disarm me and disarm us in the community?’” Father de Chergé wrote.

The Pontiff has made this insight his own. In fact, this has become one of the most characteristic expressions of his pontificate: his repeated call to build an “unarmed and disarming peace.” For Leo XIV, the disarmament of nations cannot last without a prior disarmament of hearts.

A few weeks after his election, Leo XIV addressed a letter to French Catholics for the centenary of the canonizations of St. John Vianney, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and St. John Eudes. Rather than limiting the letter to a historical commemoration, he invited the faithful to rediscover the missionary fruitfulness of their own tradition.

He wrote that the Curé d'Ars (St. John Vianney) is even today a model of pastoral closeness, while St. John Eudes reminds us of the importance of a priestly life deeply rooted in Christ. The Pope also presented St. Thérèse as “the great Doctor of scientia amoris that our world needs.”

This “science of love” is not theoretical knowledge. Instead, it is a spiritual experience capable of renewing the proclamation of the Gospel today. In the same letter, Leo XIV didn’t take a purely nostalgic look at French Christianity. He affirmed that this Christian heritage “still deeply permeates” the country’s culture and can inspire “a new missionary impetus.”

On a more personal note, he took the opportunity to thank the country’s priests “from the bottom of my heart.” He praised them for pursuing their ministry “despite the contrary and sometimes hostile winds of indifference, materialism, and individualism.”

This confidence in the vitality of French spiritual heritage also runs through his first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi te, dedicated to the love of marginalized people. Pope Francis prepared a first draft of the document before his death. It highlights several great figures of the French tradition: St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Louise de Marillac, St. John Baptist de La Salle, St. Marcellin Champagnat, and St. Charles de Foucauld. Each embodies, in his or her own way, a Church that never separates contemplation from practical engagement.

While St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac urged people to respect the dignity of those in need, St. John Baptist de La Salle and St. Marcellin Champagnat demonstrated that universal access to education benefits society as a whole.

St. Charles de Foucauld was a hermit assassinated in the Algerian desert in 1916. Today, he remains an example of fraternal presence among those farthest from the Church, demonstrating that being present to others always precedes missionary discourse. Pope Francis, who canonized him in 2022, also held this theme dear.

In Dilexi te, the Pope also mentioned Sister Emmanuelle (1908–2008). Rarely has such a contemporary religious sister been included in a pontifical document of this importance. Leo XIV sees the Franco-Belgian sister, who consecrated her life to the ragpickers of Cairo, as an example of joyfully living with people on the peripheries. Her presence alongside the poor illustrates a charity that doesn’t consist merely of providing assistance, but of sharing long-term in the conditions of those who suffer.