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.”
\n\nThe 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.
\n\nNow, 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.
\n\nThe 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.
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