Pope Leo leads parade along Champs-Élysées

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Hundreds of thousands of people lined the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris as Pope Leo XIV arrived for an outdoor Mass - the biggest event of his weekend visit to France.

The Vatican estimated that 700,000 people came out for the mid-afternoon Mass in the French capital — more than the 600,000 who had registered in advance.

Crowds descended before sunrise against barriers down the tree-lined boulevard, waving white and yellow Vatican flags.

Nearby, police closed streets where Leo was driven in the open-top ⁠popemobile in the latest stop on his a four-day, three-city visit to France.

The vehicle travelled along the famous road, taking the pontiff to the Place de la Concorde, where a special altar has been built for the ceremony, and he was greeted by fireworks and cheers from those gathered.

Although a massive security detail shut down central Paris to road traffic, the party-like atmosphere drew people of multiple faiths and no faith at all to see the American pope.

Chants of "Leo, Leo" and "Long live the Pope" echoed down the road and the vehicle paused frequently, with Leo blessing babies, children and people with disabilities passed forward by volunteers.

“The message of Pope Leo goes well beyond Catholic people; he speaks about social justice, for example,” said Leontine Joseph, 42, a fervent Catholic who came to Mass with two friends of Moroccan origin.

Leo has sought to encourage French Catholics to persevere in their faith “even amid the thorns” of a secular world during his four-day visit.

It began on Friday with his arrival and prayer at the newly restored Notre Dame cathedral, the first by a pope since the devastating 2019 fire, and continues with his prayer at the Catholic shrine at Lourdes.

The pope, who has forcefully decried the direction of global leadership in recent months, warned in a speech on Friday at the Paris headquarters of the UN culture and education body, UNESCO, that the UN ‌and other multilateral groups were in crisis.

He also repeated his frequent appeal for the world to reconsider the development of artificial intelligence, telling French leaders that AI could create a future where "a paradise of machines" takes control of the Earth.

Pierre-Marie Estienne, 36, was in the crowd waiting for Leo's Mass in central Paris with his ⁠wife and their four young children.

"We live in an era of great materialism," he said. "There is a lot of evil around us, so we need a message of hope and love."

The huge turnout testified to the church’s enduring influence in France, despite sharp declines in churchgoing in recent decades and secularising trends that have emptied churches around Europe.

France, a secular nation where the separation of church and state is enshrined in a 1905 law, has witnessed a steady decline in affiliation to the Catholic Church since World War Two, mirroring a trend in other traditionally Catholic countries.

Although the French Bishops' Conference points to an increase in baptisms of adults, including a record 21,000 last Easter, a report published by the official statistics agency, INSEE, showed that only 25 per cent of French 18-to-49-year-olds identified as Catholic, compared with 43 per cent a decade earlier.

In a visit on Saturday ‌with newly baptised Catholics at the Catholic University of ⁠Paris, Leo urged the French church not to be "naively optimistic" about the recent increase in ⁠adherents.

"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.

Leo heads later ‌on Saturday to Lourdes, home to a Catholic shrine. ​He will meet seven French victims of abuse by clergy there on Sunday.