Hundreds of thousands of Catholics poured into Paris on Saturday as Pope Leo XIV held Mass in the city centre, spreading a message of religious revival amid modern secularism stemming from the French Revolution and calling on the faithful to “bring hope wherever discouragement and spiritual dryness prevail.”
The first papal visit to France occurred in 754, when Pope Stephen II crossed the Alps to visit the Frankish kingdom and anointed King Pepin, son of Charles Martel, hero of the Battle of Tours and father of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. At the time, Pope Stephen remarked that the Franks were more “glorious than other nations” in their service of the Church.
Now, nearly 13 centuries later, after decades of decline and rising numbers of non-believers, the Church in France appears to be reviving, with baptisms of adults and teenagers hitting record levels this year in France, up 20 per cent over 2025.
The strength of the Catholic Church, which remains the largest religion in France, was on full display on Saturday, as an estimated 800,000 faithful flocked to the Champs-Élysées and the Place de la Concorde in central Paris for an outdoor mass led by Pope Leo XIV.
Worshippers gathered on the Champs-Elysees Avenue attend a solemn outdoor mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at Place de la Concorde, central Paris, on September 26, 2026 on the second day of his visit to France. (Photo by Kiran RIDLEY / AFP via Getty Images)
Driving down the cleared historic avenue, an honour usually reserved for French Presidents on Bastille Day, Leo was greeted by thousands of cheering people, while blessing children as he made his way from Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. Meanwhile, priests dotted the avenue, hearing open-air confessions from the faithful.
Formerly known as the Place de la Révolution (Revolution Square), the site served as the central stage for many key events of the French Revolution, notably the Reign of Terror mass guillotine executions, including those of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette and thousands of others.
During the final days of the Terror, many of the most prominent revolutionaries were also executed at the site, including arch anti-Catholic Maximilien Robespierre, who sought to displace the power of the Church with a ruthless and modernist state, which ultimately turned against him.
The Pope touched on the sacrifice of French Catholics while visiting Parcours des Martyrs at the Catholic Institute of Paris, which stands as the site where over 100 bishops and priests were killed by radical revolutionaries in 1792, during the September Massacres, after they refused to renounce their allegiance to the Church.
In his homily during the Mass at the Place de la Concorde on Saturday, Pope Leo said: “Seeing you gathered here, my brothers and sisters, heirs to France’s long and beautiful history of faith, I say to you: drink from the source that is the pierced heart of Jesus. Yes, you thirst for God, for life, for truth, for unity, for peace, for communion and for happiness. You long to rediscover a horizon filled with light and to build a renewed nation upon roots nourished by faith.
“Do not keep this faith in Jesus Christ to yourselves. Let it overflow, so that those you meet may be refreshed and their thirst satisfied. You are called to bring hope wherever discouragement and spiritual dryness prevail.”
PARIS, FRANCE – SEPTEMBER 26: General view during Pope Leo XIV’s outdoor Mass at Place de la Concorde, on September 26, 2026, in Paris, France. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
The Pope noted that there was a long history of French people who sacrificed for their faith, including Saints Irenaeus, Martin, and Francis de Sales, while adding that there are people who to this day “continue to devote themselves to the cause of life, the family, truth, peace, fraternity and justice.”
“From this beautiful city of Paris, I pray fervently that the living water of the Holy Spirit may flow throughout France. I think of you, dear families, who, despite the many difficulties you face each day, persevere courageously in your vocation and mission. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the good that is accomplished through you. May the tangible presence of Jesus within you never run dry.”
During his first visit to France this week, and the first official papal visit to France since 2008, Pope Leo XIV said that the resurgence of faith and the increase in baptisms should be seen as the product of the Holy and “God’s surprising work” in combating the age of secularism that was in ushered into being during the Revolution.
“It may seem paradoxical that this phenomenon… is taking place against the backdrop of a society like that of France, which is marked by a deeply secularised culture,” he told the Catholic Institute of Paris on Saturday.
Pope Leo XIV prays in front of the silver Virgin and Child (Vierge à l’Enfant) from the Notre-Dame de Paris treasury, known as the “Vierge dite de Charles X”, after presiding over the Solemn Vespers at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on September 25, 2026. (Photo by Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP via Getty Images)
On his first day of the visit to France, Leo became the first pope to set foot in the Notre-Dame Cathedral on Friday evening after its reconstruction following the devastating 2019 fire, which engulfed much of the medieval church’s roof and spire. Pope Leo observed that the pain of seeing the 12th-century cathedral on fire was not felt only by Catholics, or indeed only by believers.
“In that tragic moment we came to realise that Notre-Dame is more than a monument,” he said. “The collective effort to rebuild it, and the splendour of the result reveal that the heart of a people beats here, and that here we stand at the living centre of a civilisation, where past and future embrace, where heaven and earth meet.”
Later that night, Pope Leo held an evening vigil for 80,000 young Catholics at France’s national soccer stadium in Paris, where he became the first pope to venerate the Holy Tunic of Christ, which has been venerated as Christ’s tunic in France for over 12 centuries after it was gifted to Emperor Charlemagne from Empress Irene of Constantinople around the year 800.
To the young people gathered at the Stade de France, Pope Leo again returned to the theme of spreading the faith in the modern secular world, saying that “the society in which we live seems indifferent to God. But the Lord is not indifferent to us! This is what matters, and what always gives us hope.”
He urged those gathered to take inspiration from the saints of France, many of whose relics were gathered for the Mass. “Even in the face of persecution, these brothers and sisters of ours opened paths of peace. Look to those priests who were passionate about Christ,” he said, adding: “These saints changed the course of history by leading many people from hardship to hope, since they first changed their own hearts, transforming them in the light of faith.”
PARIS, FRANCE – SEPTEMBER 25: Faithful take part in a theatrical performance in ten scenes depicting French saints and virtues during a prayer vigil with young people at the Stade de France on September 25 in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, France. (Photo by Tom Nicholson/Getty Images)
After the Mass in Paris, Pope Leo will travel to Lourdes in the foothills of the Pyrenees, where he is expected to greet over 150,000 pilgrims. The town and its Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes became one of the Catholic world’s top pilgrimage destinations following the 1858 apparitions of the Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette at the Grotto of Massabielle. Pope Leo will be the first to visit the site since Benedict XVI visited in 2008 for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions.
After holding Mass in Lourdes, Pope Leo will then travel to the city of Metz in northeastern France, where he will also hold Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Stephen, also referred to as the “Good Lord’s Lantern”, before travelling back to Rome on Monday.