Pope aboard papal plane: ‘I travel to France to proclaim Christ’s peace’

“Buongiorno a tutti! Bonjour! Good morning! As we say in English, welcome on board! Happy to see you all this morning, happy to greet you,” Pope Leo XIV said on the flight headed to France, as he begins his fifth international Apostolic Journey from September 25 to 28, which will bring him to Paris, Lourdes, and Metz.

“I, above all, am travelling to France, as to anywhere else in the world, as a follower of Jesus Christ wanting to proclaim peace, the peace of Christ throughout the world. It is a message which at this time, as we all know, is particularly important,” the Pope said to journalists travelling with him.

He thanked them for their work and noted that this Journey will touch on “a number of very important topics.”

More than 80 journalists form over 10 countries filled the airplane seats which had a head seat cover with the Pope’s coat of arms embroidered, along with the logo of ITA Airways, the Italian carrier operating the flight.

Members of the press were armed with notebooks, phones, laptops, photo cameras, and other equipment, as they got ready to relay to viewers, listeners and readers across the world everything about the Pope’s journey.

Across the aisles one could hear a myriad of languages: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, French, of course, and many more.

The Pope took this opportunity to “apologize personally” for the fact that on his last Apostolic Journey to Spain in June 2026, due to a technical issue on the papal plane, the journalists returned to Rome on a separate flight from the Pope and thus the usual inflight press conference could not be held.

“I know,” he said, that this incident “left a number of you unhappy with the fact that we could not have the flight back together, back to Rome,” the Pope acknowledged.