Overview
- Italian newspaper Il Tempo reports the Pope personally ordered that Emmanuel Macron be denied both a private audience and a state-level visit.
- French diplomats have allegedly sought a meeting for weeks without success, according to the account cited by multiple European outlets.
- The reported rationale centers on Macron’s support for enshrining a right to abortion in France’s constitution in March 2024 and his push to liberalize euthanasia.
- Pope Leo XIV recently denounced abortion as categorically unacceptable and called euthanasia a false form of compassion in his New Year address.
- Other European heads of state from Britain, Italy, Germany, and Spain have been received at the Vatican, while Macron has not, the reports say.