In Monaco, Pope Leo finds a natural ally in advancing peace, faith

Yet their relationship is also rooted in a broader alignment in how both men understand the role of faith in public life.

The prince in 2025 refused to sign into law a bill legalizing elective abortions in Monaco, citing the role of religion in the country as the reason for withholding his support. Albert has also been a fierce advocate of environmental protections on the global stage and he has a charity in his name dedicated to environmental causes. 

Leo has made known his concern for the environment and he has issued strong language against abortion, calling the use of state funds for abortion "deplorable." 

For Monaco's ambassador to the Holy See, Philippe Orengo, that convergence extends beyond the relationship between the pope and the prince and into the way both Monaco and the Vatican understand their role on the global stage.

"Precisely because we are not very powerful and are not driven by a desire for conquest or domination, we are able to look beyond our national interests to convey messages that are both timeless and universal in nature," he said. 

That shared emphasis on the common good is particularly evident in Monaco's longstanding focus on peace, which Orengo pointed to as a defining feature of the principality's international posture.

"The principality has long been committed to the defense of peace," he said, noting that as early as 1903, Monaco's sovereign founded an international institute dedicated to peace. "We have never been at war with anyone."

For a pope who has decried a "diplomacy based on force" supplanting international dialogue, highlighting the principality's commitment to peace on the global stage underscores his repeated messages on peace and multilateralism. 

The first dedicated papal visit to Monaco will be unusual in both its logistics and its focus.

Because Monaco lacks an airport, Leo will travel directly from the Vatican by helicopter, while the papal entourage and accompanying journalists will fly into nearby Nice, France, before being transported across the border. 

The arrangement allows the pope to avoid the diplomatic protocol required when a foreign head of state lands on French territory and the complications that could arise in planning the trip from involving French authorities. 

More striking than the logistics, however, is the focus of the trip itself. The pope's one-day visit to the principality will be entirely dedicated to the country's Catholic community. 

Whereas Pope Francis made a point of visiting marginalized groups and non-Catholics during his international travels, Leo's trip will engage exclusively with Monaco's Catholics — an estimated 80% of the microstate's 39,000 residents. 

On his only other international trip so far to Turkey and Lebanon, Leo visited a nursing home and hospital for people with mental disabilities, but he will not be seeking out marginalized groups in a nation where 1 in 3 residents is a millionaire.

Despite its reputation as a playground for the ultrawealthy, that Monaco retains its historic relationship with Catholicism offers a rare example of religion exerting a visible influence in civic society.

During a visit to Monaco in 2021, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said the microstate's unique relationship with religion presents an opportunity in an increasingly secularized world which "claims to exclude religion from the sphere of public life, relegating it to a purely personal matter." 

Five years later, if the pope wants to make the case for the role of religion in shaping public life, Monaco might just be the perfect backdrop.