Year XXXVIII, Number 2, July 2025

Henri Lastenouse
Professor of Political Philosophy, Catholic University of Lyon

As the first non-European Pope in over a millennium, Francis hasn’t been particularly sensible to the original specificity of the European project driven by the nations of the Old Continent that followed their shared experience of absolute evil during World War II, unlike his predecessors, who, since John XXIII, accompanied the European project, sometimes having close ties to some of Europe’s founding fathers.

In the mind of the late Pope the attempt to pacify the European continent, by means of a common legal standard that applies to all and serves the emancipation of each individual, seems to have been reduced to the element of the Single European Market, seen in the view of the critic of a consumerist lifestyle, symbol of a decline in the forces of the spirit.

Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has thus avoided focusing his attention to the Old Continent too much… with one exception, that of the migration issue. As early as July 8, 2013, three months after being elected Pope, Francis chose Lampedusa as the destination for one of his first pastoral visits.

The 12 years of Francis’ pontificate have been marked by a deep and continuous appeal to the European Union and its member states about the migration issue. Pope Francis has never ceased to remind European political leaders of their responsibilities towards those who are fleeing misery, persecution and war. “Cemetery” is an expression Pope Francis has used dozens of times to describe the Mediterranean. Since 2013, according to data from the International Organization for Migration, more than 25,000 people have died in the Mediterranean Sea, mainly on the central Mediterranean route.

On receiving the Charlemagne Prize, Pope Francis did confess his dream of a “new European humanism” in the face of a Europe that seems to many “tired and aged, not fertile and vital, where great ideals seem to have lost their force of attraction”. In his letter dated November 2, 2020, Pope Francis reacted to the reactionary international that had, in the meantime, seized power in several Western countries. “Europe, find yourself again! Rediscover your deep-rooted ideals. Be yourself! Don’t be afraid of your thousand-year-old history, which is a window on the future rather than the past”.