Pope Leo XIV touched down at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées International Airport on Saturday evening, opening the second stage of a four-day visit to France just hours after an open-air Mass in central Paris drew a crowd the Vatican estimated at around 800,000 — some 200,000 more than the roughly 600,000 who had registered in advance.
His first act in Lourdes was a prayer at the Grotto of the Apparitions at Massabielle, the rock alcove where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858. The sanctuary in the Hautes-Pyrénées remains one of the most visited Catholic shrines in the world, and the pope's presence there gives the French trip its most explicitly devotional dimension.
A packed schedule in Lourdes
On Sunday, Leo is due to meet the bishops of France before celebrating an outdoor Mass on the sanctuary's Prairie and leading the Angelus prayer. In the afternoon he will visit the Accueil Notre-Dame, where he is scheduled to meet staff and pilgrims who are sick or disabled, and hold a private meeting with contemplative religious sisters.
The pope will also meet privately with seven survivors of sexual abuse by priests and other Catholic personnel. The encounter is likely to draw close scrutiny from critics who argue the Church has still not done enough to reckon with the crisis. Some survivors' organisations have questioned the Vatican's decision to meet individuals rather than representatives of established advocacy groups, arguing that one-to-one audiences can sidestep the institutional questions those groups raise.
The Lourdes leg closes on Sunday evening with one of the sanctuary's signature rites: a rosary recitation followed by a torchlight procession, in which pilgrims carry candles through the grounds.
Paris crowds exceed expectations
The Lourdes arrival followed roughly 32 hours in the French capital. Leo travelled down the Champs-Élysées in his popemobile toward Place de la Concorde, where crowds lined a security perimeter stretching nearly two miles from the square past the Arc de Triomphe. Metro stations along the route were shut as part of the security operation, and chants of "Leo! Leo!" rose as the vehicle passed. Parents lifted infants and small children toward the pope, who reached out to touch dozens of them.
Some 2,400 priests and deacons and about 100 bishops concelebrated the Mass. In his homily, Leo urged the faithful not to keep their beliefs to themselves, saying their faith should be visible enough to bring comfort to others.
President Emmanuel Macron did not attend Saturday's Mass and is not expected at any of the papal Masses during the visit. His wife, Brigitte Macron, was present, as was Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.
A message to a secularising France
The trip has functioned as an appeal to French Catholics to hold on to their faith at a time when regular church attendance continues to fall. Leo began the visit on Friday at the newly restored Notre-Dame Cathedral — the first papal visit there since the 2019 fire that gutted the building.
Speaking on Saturday at the Institut Catholique de Paris, the pope said he had been struck by the rising number of adults converting to Catholicism in France, describing it as a small but resilient flame worth protecting. Adult baptisms in the country have nearly tripled since 2016, reaching about 13,000 this year. The trend, also visible recently in Spain, has not reversed the wider decline: France recorded 513,000 baptisms in 1980, against 186,000 in 2024.
Observers noted that Saturday's turnout and its mood echoed earlier moments of mass celebration on the Champs-Élysées, including France's World Cup victories in 1998 and 2018. For a Church navigating a secular republic, the comparison was not incidental.
