ACI Prensa Staff, 25 August, 2025 / 7:57 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Leo XIV said during an audience with French altar servers in Rome on Aug. 25, the feast day of St. Louis IX, king of France, that the shortage of priests is “a great misfortune” for the Catholic Church, encouraging them to “persevere faithfully” in their service at the altar.
“I also wish you to be attentive to the call that Jesus might make to you to follow him more closely in the priesthood. I am speaking to your consciences as enthusiastic and generous young people, and I am going to tell you something that you must listen to, even if it worries you a little: the shortage of priests in France is a great misfortune! A misfortune for the Church, a misfortune for your country!” the pontiff said.
Leo XIV began his address by reminding the young people that the jubilee celebrated by the Church every 25 years is “an exceptional occasion” and that, as we pass through the Holy Door, Jesus “helps us to ‘convert,’ that is, to turn toward him, to grow in faith and in his love so that we may become better disciples, and that our lives may be made beautiful and good in his sight, in view of eternal life.”
He therefore invited the altar servers to take advantage of the opportunity to come to Rome, above all by “spending time speaking to Jesus in the depths of your hearts and loving him more and more,” because he desires only “to become your best friend, your most faithful one.”
