Vatican Puts Crowd at 800,000 for Pope Leo's Mass in Paris

Pope Leo XIV celebrated an open-air Mass at the Place de la Concorde in Paris on Saturday before a crowd that stretched up the Champs-élysées to the Arc de Triomphe and beyond.

The Vatican first put the crowd at 700,000, then raised its estimate to about 800,000, saying it was relaying a count from local authorities, French broadcaster TF1 and Agence France-Presse reported. The Associated Press also reported the Vatican's 800,000 figure. The Archdiocese of Paris said nearly 600,000 people had registered before it closed sign-ups Sept. 16.

The Mass was the centerpiece of Leo's four-day trip, the first official papal visit to France in nearly two decades, according to AFP and the AP. The Chicago-born pontiff is the first American pope.

Leo rode the length of the avenue in an open popemobile, stopping often to bless babies and people with disabilities passed forward from the crowd, Reuters and France 24 reported. Crowds chanted "Leo, Leo."

In his homily, the pope urged French Catholics to share their faith. "Do not keep this faith in Jesus Christ to yourselves. Let it overflow, so that those you meet may be refreshed and their thirst satisfied," he said, according to OSV News.

"From this beautiful city of Paris, I pray fervently that the living water of the Holy Spirit may flow throughout France," he said. He also told the crowd, "Only God can fill the emptiness within us," Reuters reported.

The square where Leo said Mass was among the main execution sites of the French Revolution; Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined there. A security zone closed central Paris to road traffic for the event, the AP reported.

President Emmanuel Macron, who received the pope at the élysée Palace on Friday, did not attend the Mass. His wife, Brigitte, did, along with presidential hopefuls including far-right leader Marine Le Pen, according to AFP and Reuters. France holds a presidential election next spring.

Earlier Saturday, Leo visited Maison Bakhita, a Paris center that helps migrants and refugees. He said it was "possible to encounter one another and to live together in dignity and peace," according to AFP and Vatican News.

On Friday, in remarks to French officials at the élysée, he warned about artificial intelligence. "If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a 'paradise of machines' invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good," he said, according to the text released by the Vatican.

After the Mass, Leo flew to Lourdes, where he prayed Saturday evening at the grotto of the Marian shrine. He is scheduled to meet privately there Sunday with seven French victims of clergy sexual abuse, AFP and Reuters reported. On Monday he travels to Metz in northeastern France for meetings at a conference center named for Robert Schuman, a founder of European integration, and a Mass at the city's cathedral before returning to Rome, according to the Vatican's published program.