Hundreds of thousands of people packed Paris' iconic Champs-Élysées Avenue for Pope Leo XIV's big outdoor Mass on Saturday, a sign of the Catholic Church's enduring appeal in the once staunchly Catholic but officially secular country. The Vatican estimated that 800,000 people came out for the Mass — more than the 600,000 who had registered in advance. The stunning turnout testified to the church's enduring influence in France, despite sharp declines in churchgoing in recent decades and secularizing trends that have emptied churches around Europe.
During his speech, Leo encouraged attendees in a mostly secular France "to build a renewed nation upon roots nourished by faith." Although a massive security blanket shut down central Paris to road traffic, the party-like atmosphere drew people of multiple faiths and no faith at all. The fervor spanned generations. People brought dozens of babies and young children from the crowd for Leo to caress on the head as he rode slowly past them aboard the popemobile.
"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 with two friends of Moroccan origin who grew up in Muslim culture. 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 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 was joined inside the restored cathedral for a prayer service by many of the people who helped rebuild it. The number of adult baptisms in France each year has tripled since 2016, hitting 13,000 this year. But statistics and experts caution that the uptick, which has been recorded also in secular Spain, doesn't counteract the overall generational trend of children of practicing French Catholics no longer going to Mass or baptizing their babies.
In 1980, there were 513,000 baptisms in France; in 2024, a total of 186,000. And just this past Easter, according to the bishops in France, more than 21,000 adults and teenagers were baptized, CBS News' foreign correspondent Chris Livesay reported. This was a big jump from the year before, he said.
The rivers of people who crammed central Paris and their joyful enthusiasm rivaled other communal but nonreligious moments of celebration that marked France in recent decades. Huge crowds celebrated on the Champs-Elysées when France won the soccer World Cup in 1998 and again in 2018. Leo's visit to Paris came as a birthday present for Jean-Claude Farnabe, who turned 63 on Saturday and spent the morning securing a spot amid the throngs of people.
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