Pope Leo XIV said on Saturday it was possible to “live together in dignity and peace” as he met migrants in Paris, ahead of a giant open-air mass expected to gather hundreds of thousands of people on the iconic Champs Elysees.
The first US pontiff is visiting France on a four-day trip as the European nation gears up for elections next year to replace centrist President Emmanuel Macron, with the anti-immigration far right eyeing its best chance at the top job.
On the second day of the first official papal visit to the European nation in 18 years, the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics will lead the faithful in prayer from 3:00 pm (1300 GMT).
Around 600,000 people were expected to attend the event at Place de la Concorde and along the adjoining Champs Elysees.
President Emmanuel Macron will not attend the mass, but several presidential hopefuls, including far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Edouard Philippe, have confirmed their attendance.
Earlier Saturday the pope visited Maison Bakhita, an association supporting migrants and refugees.
“I am pleased to begin this second day in Paris with you, in a house that bears witness to the whole city that it is possible to encounter one another and to live together in dignity and peace,” he said.
He had been set to meet women and men, of Christian and Muslim faith, from Algeria, Belarus, Iraq and the Ivory Coast, the association had said, calling it a “message” in the run-up to elections.
“The pope is coming to tell the French that, whatever our political convictions, we share a common humanity and a right to dignity,” association president Valerie Moniod has told reporters.
The pope has called the treatment of migrants in the United States “extremely disrespectful” and said “we have to look for ways of treating people humanely.”
Leo’s visit to France has stirred enthusiasm and spiritual fervour among the faithful.
On Friday, an estimated 300,000 people came out to see the pontiff as he waved to the crowds from his popemobile on the way to the Notre Dame Cathedral.
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On Friday, Pope Leo stressed the need for ethics to avoid an AI-driven “paradise of machines” and, as war rages in Ukraine for a fifth year, urged France to remain a “tireless champion of peace”.
On Friday night, he told young adults at a stadium outside the French capital that they were the “saints of France” and that the Church needed them.
In a deeply secular country, only around five percent of France’s 69 million residents go to Catholic church services regularly, a survey found last year.
But while the number of infants getting baptised has dwindled in recent years, more teenagers and adults are taking the plunge.
After the mass in Paris, Pope Leo will head to Lourdes, a town in southwestern France where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared in a grotto in 1858 to a peasant girl.
In Lourdes on Sunday, he will speak with seven victims of clerical sex abuse.
A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 people as minors in France, over seven decades.
In recent years, further accusations have emerged against charity icon Abbe Pierre and workers at a Catholic boarding school near Lourdes.
For the last leg of his trip in Metz, on Monday, Leo is expected to make a speech about peace in Europe.
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