Pro-Life March in Paris Throngs the Streets — Bishops AWOL

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Chris Jackson

On January 18, 2026, roughly 10,000 gathered at Place Vauban for the annual March for Life in Paris, timed amid France’s recent constitutionalization of abortion and a looming Senate debate over euthanasia legislation. The Register’s reporting describes a crowd that skewed young, with organizers putting the average age around 20.

You can read that as hope. You can also read it as indictment.

The indictment appears in a single sentence: the French hierarchy was “conspicuous by its absence,” with Bishop Emeritus Dominique Rey again the only bishop present. Organizers say dioceses often refuse even to announce the march, while issuing written statements on legislation that somehow never bother to stand beside the young Catholics doing the public work.

The postconciliar bureaucracy has mastered a particular art: issuing “op-eds” from a safe distance while treating public witness as a hobby for students. The kids receive the social penalties, the episcopate keeps its calendar clean.

A generational divide follows naturally. Young Catholics formed under aggressive secularism tend to crave moral edges and plain speech. The managerial class, trained in risk management and media hygiene, treats edges as liabilities. The result is a Church where the young learn, early, that “support from the bishops” often means a vague assurance of prayer and a firm refusal to appear.

The Register notes that speaking publicly on abortion and euthanasia in France carries real cost, with legal and cultural pressure narrowing space for dissent. That context changes nothing about the duty of bishops. It clarifies it.

The earliest Christian centuries did not win by staying tasteful. Bishops did not preserve the Faith by “not making it their priority.” Martyrdom was not an extracurricular.

When a hierarchy consistently declines to show up, the explanation is already written in their operating system. These men are not acting like successors of the Apostles confronting a civilizational crime. They are acting like nonprofit executives guarding brand reputation. Paris did not reveal a French problem. Paris revealed a modern episcopal personality type.

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