Paris set for a sea of worshippers as Pope Leo XIV visits France

International

PARIS is preparing for a papal spectacle on a massive scale, with hundreds of thousands expected to fill the Champs-Élysées this weekend as Pope Leo XIV begins his four-day visit to France.

The high point will come on Saturday afternoon, when some 600,000 Catholic faithful are expected to gather for Mass along the avenue. An altar has been erected at the Place de la Concorde, while police have sealed off a large area around the Champs-Élysées toward the Arc de Triomphe.

Pope Leo will be welcomed at Orly airport on Friday by President Emmanuel Macron, who will hold talks with him at the Élysée Palace on geopolitical issues and artificial intelligence. The two will also deliver a speech together in Metz.

Macron will not attend the Pope’s Masses, reflecting France’s strict separation of church and state. His wife, Brigitte Macron, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu are expected at the Champs-Élysées celebration, along with several figures expected to seek the presidency next year, including Marine Le Pen, Edouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal and Bruno Retailleau.

Reports of tensions between Macron’s office and Vatican officials over the visit were dismissed by Élysée officials, who said ceremonial options offered to visiting heads of state were customary. The Pope declined a proposal to meet artisans involved in rebuilding Notre-Dame, officials said, because of his tight schedule.

After a Popemobile ride through Paris to Notre-Dame on Friday, Leo will meet about 80,000 young people at the Stade de France. In Lourdes, 150,000 people have registered for Sunday’s Mass.

The Pope will travel to Metz on Monday to pay tribute to Robert Schuman, a founding figure of the European Union and a candidate for beatification. He will also meet migrants in Paris and victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Lourdes.

Leo, born Robert Prevost in Chicago in 1955, has French family roots through his paternal grandmother, who was born in Le Havre in 1894.

France’s Catholic population has declined sharply, with regular worship falling from 35% in 1960 to less than 5% today. Yet adult baptisms more than doubled in five years, reaching 10,000 in 2025.

“France has indeed secularised, but there is a void where God and values used to be,” said Cardinal François Bustillo, Bishop of Ajaccio in a BBC report. He added that the Pope’s visit could reconnect people with their religious roots.(MyTVCebu)