Pope Leo XIV draws vast crowds before Paris Mass
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Pope Leo XIV's four-day visit to France has drawn unprecedented crowds, with hundreds of thousands greeting him on the Champs-Élysées before a giant open-air Mass at Place de la Concorde on Saturday. Beyond the main ceremony, the Pope visited the Maison Bakhita centre to meet migrants, emphasising the importance of living together in dignity and the fundamental role of women, whilst also issuing a stark warning about artificial intelligence and the danger of "losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines."
Over half a million people are expected at the Place de la Concorde Mass, with 150,000 registered for a subsequent service in Lourdes on Sunday and a further visit to Metz on Monday to honour Robert Schuman, a founding father of the European Union and candidate for beatification. President Emmanuel Macron will not attend the Masses to preserve France's constitutional separation of church and state, though his wife Brigitte, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, and several presidential candidates—including Marine Le Pen, Bruno Retailleau, Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal—are confirmed attendees. The Pope, born Robert Prevost in Chicago in 1955, has French heritage through his paternal grandmother, who was born in Le Havre, Normandy.
- Pope Leo XIV draws over half a million to Paris Mass amid warnings about AI
- Visited refugee centre, emphasised dignity and women's role in building civilisation
- Macron absent for separation of church and state; political figures attending across spectrum
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The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church and one of the world's most prominent religious figures. His visits to major cities are significant events that draw large crowds of both the faithful and the curious, and they often generate political and cultural interest beyond religious circles. Pope Leo XIV, who was born in the United States but has French ancestry, is currently making a four-day visit to France.
France has long maintained a formal separation between church and state, a principle enshrined in its constitution. Despite this, Catholicism remains an important part of French cultural and religious life, and papal visits are occasions when many French people gather to participate in or witness religious ceremonies. The visit includes a major open-air Mass in Paris and visits to other significant Catholic sites.
The size of the crowds greeting the Pope demonstrates the enduring appeal of such occasions in Europe. The visit also reflects the complicated relationship between religion and politics in France: while the President is staying away from the Masses to uphold the church-state boundary, other political figures are attending. The scale of public interest indicates that religious events retain the capacity to mobilise large numbers of people across European societies.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Religious expression remains vital to European spiritual life and identity, and the spontaneous gathering of half a million people demonstrates that faith continues to meet deep human needs beyond material prosperity. Citizens' right to peaceful religious assembly and public witness should be celebrated as an expression of freedom of conscience, particularly when such gatherings occur through genuine popular enthusiasm rather than compulsion. This represents religious freedom in practice, not state endorsement.
The case against
Whilst religious freedom is fundamental, France's principle of laïcité exists precisely to protect both religion and state by maintaining their separation. When a single religious event commands half a million attendees with prime ministerial attendance and substantial public resources devoted to security and infrastructure, it risks presenting state neutrality as symbolic rather than substantive. The Church's historical entanglement with political power makes vigilance necessary to ensure that religious spectacle does not gradually erode the secular governance that alone allows France to accommodate all beliefs without any tradition dominating.
Full account
A vast concourse of Catholic worshippers assembled in central Paris on Saturday as Pope Leo XIV presided over an open-air ecclesiastical service at the Place de la Concorde. The pontiff traversed the Champs-Élysées, one of the capital's most celebrated avenues, where spectators crowded beneath the Arc de Triomphe to witness his passage. Attendance figures presented in the available accounts diverge: one reference points to more than half a million anticipated, whilst another specifies over 600,000 registered participants. The scale of the gathering was widely interpreted as reflecting a resurgence of spiritual interest amongst the French populace, notwithstanding the country's historically secular character.
Throughout his journey along the avenue, Pope Leo XIV acknowledged onlookers from his open-topped vehicle, pausing periodically to interact with members of the public and bestow blessings upon infants. Earlier that day, the pontiff had visited the Maison Bakhita, an organisation dedicated to assisting migrant populations. There, he commended the organisation's work in bringing visibility to those customarily rendered invisible, and spoke of the potential for human beings to live together in mutual respect and tranquillity. He further emphasised what he characterised as women's foundational role in constructing a civilisation grounded in love.
The papal visit unfolded within a context of institutional rehabilitation. The Catholic Church in France sought to restore its credibility following serious abuse scandals that had damaged public trust. The itinerary reflects this strategic imperative: the Pope intends to meet with survivors of clerical misconduct during his forthcoming visit to Lourdes, where 150,000 worshippers have committed to attending a further Mass. Subsequently, he will journey to Metz to honour Robert Schuman, an architect of European integration whose candidacy for beatification remains active. The structured programme demonstrates a calculated effort to reconstruct the Church's standing through high-profile engagement and moral advocacy.
The Pope articulated substantive concerns regarding technological development, particularly artificial intelligence, warning that unchecked advancement risked effacing human values beneath mechanised systems. At the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, he identified broader institutional crises affecting international governance structures. When addressing newly baptised Catholics at Paris's principal ecclesiastical university, however, his tone shifted toward cautious encouragement. He urged against unwarranted optimism whilst advocating for the cultivation of nascent faith within a profoundly secularised society—striking a balance between realism and hope.
France represents one of Western Europe's most irreligious societies, having constitutionally separated ecclesiastical and political authority since 1905. The Catholic Church has undergone steady contraction since the Second World War. Yet a contrary trend has emerged in recent years: adult baptisms have reached unprecedented levels, with 21,000 recorded at Easter in the preceding year. The Pope's cautionary remarks to these new adherents acknowledged this apparent paradox—growth existed, yet within a broader landscape characterised by religious decline.
The Pope's presence in Paris carried significant political dimensions. President Emmanuel Macron had met with the pontiff the preceding day but deliberately avoided attending the ecclesiastical ceremonies to preserve France's constitutional secular principles. His spouse, Brigitte Macron, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, by contrast, attended the Place de la Concorde gathering. Multiple aspirants for the forthcoming presidential election were present, representing diverse political factions from nationalist through centrist camps. Such attendance illuminated both the pontiff's substantial cultural magnetism and the enduring, albeit constitutionally constrained, role of religious figures within French civic consciousness.
Where outlets differ
Source 1 emphasises specific political attendees and the Pope's French ancestry; Source 2 prioritises the clerical abuse crisis as contextual motivation for the visit
Crowd attendance figures differ: Source 1 states 'more than half a million expected'; Source 2 specifies 'over 600,000 Catholics registered'
Source 1 details President Macron's deliberate absence as observance of church-state separation; Source 2 contextualises this within broader French secularisation history since 1905
Source 2 includes direct quotations from worshippers expressing their hopes and concerns; Source 1 provides no attendee perspectives
Source 2 references Donald Trump's criticism of the Pope's stance on the Iran conflict; Source 1 does not mention this
Source 1 includes biographical information about the Pope's Chicago birth and ancestral French connections; Source 2 focuses on his institutional mission rather than personal history
Source 2 explicitly frames the visit as attempting to repair Church standing after abuse scandals; Source 1 presents the attendance as evidence of religious revival without this framing
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Originally published by BBC World as “Huge crowds greet Pope in Paris ahead of open-air Mass”.