Pope Leo Set for Largest Event of France Tour as Paris Crowds Swell
The Vatican said 800,000 attended as Leo urged Catholics to seek happiness in faith and said only God can fill human emptiness.
- On Sept. 26, 2026, Pope Leo XIV celebrated an open-air Mass at Place de la Concorde in Paris, drawing an estimated 700,000 people—exceeding the 600,000 who had registered in advance.
- Secularist critics questioned the Concorde choice, arguing the site represents the Republic and that the Invalides would be more appropriate; organizers selected it to accommodate the massive expected crowds.
- Despite long-term decline, adult baptisms in France tripled since 2016 to 13,000 this year, while total baptisms fell from 513,000 in 1980 to 186,000 in 2024, signaling competing religious trends.
- In Lourdes, Pope Leo met seven survivors of clerical sex abuse on Sunday, underscoring the Church's difficult path toward rebuilding credibility after a 2021 inquiry found about 330,000 people abused over seven decades.
- Concluding his four-day visit in Metz, Pope Leo delivered a speech on peace in Europe, framing his apostolic journey as a message of 'rebirth' and calling for protection of human dignity.
630 Articles
630 Articles
The massive reception received by the Pope in a traditionally secular country confirms the renewed interest of the French in religion and the fact that the Pontiff is rising up as a figure opposed to that of disruptive leaders.
Pope Leo’s Pro-Life and Pro-Family Journey to France
Pope Leo XIV recently concluded a historic four-day visit to France, the first papal visit to the country, often called “the eldest daughter of the Church,” since Pope Benedict XIV’s visit in 2008. The theme for Pope Leo’s trip was based on Jesus’ words in John 10:10: “So that the world may have life.” Throughout […]
Leftists and Muslims fret over France's Catholic revival: 'My reflex is to recoil'
During his Wednesday address in St. Peter's Square, Pope Leo XIV reflected on his recent four-day apostolic visit to France, noting that there is an unmistakable "renewal" underway in the formerly majority-Catholic nation.While some Catholics are excited over the prospect that the same country that waded into the modern age through the blood of Catholic clerics and lay people might now be returning to the faith, radical leftists and a Muslim act…
This was the event of a few days ago: the visit of Pope Leo XIV to France. In Paris, Lourdes and Metz, thousands of people participated in the different highlights of that trip. And the event illustrated an increasingly important trend in tourism: the “gig tripping” or also called “event tourism”. ... Continue reading “The new phenomenon of the “gig tripping” that is generating a turnaround for the tourist economy”
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