An estimated 800,000 people gathered along Paris’s Champs-Élysées for an outdoor Mass led by Pope Leo, who urged Catholics to seek happiness through faith rather than material possessions.
The crowd filled the roughly two-kilometre route between the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe, chanting “Leo, Leo” and “Long live the Pope” as he travelled through the avenue in an open-top popemobile.
The vehicle stopped repeatedly while people waved white and yellow Vatican flags. Volunteers brought children, babies and people with disabilities forward to receive the Pope’s blessing.
Among those attending were Brigitte Macron, the French president’s wife, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and Bernard Arnault, chairman of luxury group LVMH.
In his sermon, Pope Leo said faith offered the only lasting answer to human emptiness. “Only God can fill the emptiness within us,” he said.
The Mass was the largest event of the Pope’s four-day, three-city tour of France, during which he has sought to rebuild the Catholic Church’s standing after abuse scandals caused widespread shock in the country.
Many worshippers had arrived before sunrise for the mid-afternoon service. The visit comes as Catholic affiliation in France has declined steadily since the Second World War, despite an increase in adult baptisms, including a record 21,000 last Easter.
At a meeting with newly baptised Catholics at the Catholic University of Paris before the Mass, Pope Leo cautioned the French Church against being “naively optimistic” about the rise in new members.
“We must recognise, welcome and protect the small flame that the Holy Spirit has kindled in the darkness of the night, the tiny seed that strives to grow even amid the thorns,” he said.
A report from France’s official statistics agency found that 25 per cent of people aged 18 to 49 identified as Catholic, down from 43 per cent a decade earlier. France is a secular country in which the separation of church and state is enshrined in a 1905 law.
Pope Leo has also used the French visit to speak about international leadership, artificial intelligence and peace. Addressing leaders at the headquarters of Unesco in Paris on Friday, he warned that the United Nations and other multilateral organisations were facing a crisis.
He has urged a rethink of artificial intelligence, warning that it could produce a future in which “a paradise of machines” takes control of the Earth. His criticism of the war in Iran earlier this year prompted a rebuke from US President Donald Trump.
The Pope was due to travel to Lourdes later on Saturday. On Sunday, he is expected to meet seven French victims of abuse by members of the clergy.
