Pope Leo XIV is due to celebrate an open-air Mass for an estimated 600,000 people at Place de la Concorde and the adjoining Champs-Élysées at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT) Saturday, the second day of the first official papal visit to France in 18 years.
Before the Mass, Leo is scheduled to meet six Christian and Muslim migrants from Algeria, Belarus, Iraq and Ivory Coast at Maison Bakhita, an association established in response to Pope Francis’s call to welcome and protect foreigners. The association described the meeting as a “message” ahead of next year’s elections.
French President Emmanuel Macron will not attend the Mass, while presidential hopefuls Marine Le Pen and Edouard Philippe have confirmed they will. After Paris, Leo is due in Lourdes, where he is to meet seven victims of clerical sexual abuse on Sunday. A 2021 inquiry found that Church clergy or lay members had abused about 330,000 people as minors in France over seven decades. In Metz on Monday, Leo is expected to speak about peace in Europe.
