Pope Leo XIV urged French Catholics to persevere Saturday as road closures shut central Paris for a Mass at Place de la Concorde, with over 600,000 registered to attend. Adult baptisms tripled since 2016 to 13,000 this year, despite wider declines in French Catholic practice.
At a meeting with newly baptized Catholics, Leo urged bishops not to become complacent and to help integrate converts into church communities. The broader decline is reflected in total baptisms, down from 513,000 in 1980 to 186,000 in 2024, and in the number of French priests, which fell from nearly 39,000 to nearly 12,600.
Organizers said Place de la Concorde was the only central Paris site able to accommodate the expected crowd. Some staunch supporters of secularism criticized the choice because the square symbolizes the Republic; France's 1905 law separates church and state.
