Pope Leo XIV visited the cosmopolitan Mediterranean principality of Monaco on Saturday to encourage its people to use their Catholic faith and wealth for good.
As a cannon boomed, Prince Albert and Princess Charlene met Leo at the Monaco heliport, just down the coast from the marina that is home to the megayachts of the rich and famous.
A brilliant sun made the Mediterranean sparkle as Leo emerged from the Italian military helicopter that had ferried him from the Vatican for the nine-hour stay.
It is the first papal visit to Monaco since Pope Paul III in 1538.
Members of the royal family stood in the courtyard of the palace, the women dressed in black and with lace head coverings, waiting for Leo to arrive.
Charlene wore white — a protocol privilege granted by the Vatican to Catholic royal sovereigns when meeting popes, known in diplomatic terms as “le privilege du blanc”.
In his opening greeting from the palace balcony, Leo urged Monaco to use its wealth, influence and “gift of smallness” for good.
It was important, he said, “especially at a historical moment when the display of power and the logic of oppression are harming the world and jeopardising peace”.
Speaking in French later in the cathedral, Leo urged Monaco’s Catholics to spread their faith “so that the life of every man and woman may be defended and promoted from conception until natural death,” he said.
Such terms are used by the Vatican to refer to Catholic teaching opposing abortion and euthanasia.
Monaco is one of the few European countries where Catholicism is the official state religion, and Prince Albert recently refused a proposal to legalise abortion, citing the important role Catholicism plays in Monaco’s society.
The decision was largely symbolic, since abortion is a constitutional right in France, which surrounds the coastal principality of 2.2 square kilometres.
But in refusing to allow it in Monaco, Albert joined other European Catholic royals who have taken a similar stand over the years to uphold the religious doctrine on an increasingly secular continent.
When Pope Francis visited Belgium in 2024, he announced he was putting the late King Baudouin on the path to possible sainthood because he abdicated for a day in 1990 rather than approve legislation to legalise abortion.
Leo’s visit includes a private meeting with Albert and Charlene at the palace, a meeting with Monaco’s Catholic community in the cathedral and Mass in the sports stadium.
A coastal playground for the rich and famous, Monaco is renowned as much for its tax-friendly incentives and Formula 1 Grand Prix as for its glamorous royal family.
The son of the late American actress Grace Kelly, Albert spoke in perfect, unaccented English when he greeted Leo at the heliport. Leo was heard noting that he landed three minutes late.
Monaco’s population of 38,000 is heavily Catholic and also multinational, with only a fifth of the population actually citizens of the principality.
On a sunny spring day, many people flocked to the palace grounds to greet Leo and some lined the streets to wave Vatican and Monaco flags as his open-sided popemobile passed by.
