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Pope Leo XIV is set to celebrate a major public Mass at Place de la Concorde and along the adjoining Champs-Élysées in Paris on September 26 during his upcoming state visit to France.
The announcement was made on Friday by Laurent Ulrich.
The pontiff is expected to visit France from September 25 to 28, marking the first official state visit by a pope to the country in nearly two decades.
The Mass, scheduled for the early afternoon, is projected to draw approximately 500,000 worshippers.
A separate youth gathering has also been scheduled for September 25 at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis.
Ulrich explained that the choice of venues was intended to reflect both the significance of the visit and the enthusiasm of the French people in welcoming the pope.
“I wanted to welcome Pope Leo at venues and symbolic places in Paris and France,” the archbishop said, adding that the locations would demonstrate “the joy of an entire country and its capital in coming out to meet him.”
During the visit, Pope Leo XIV is also expected to hold talks with Emmanuel Macron in Paris before travelling to Lourdes, one of the world’s most prominent Christian pilgrimage destinations.
The pope will celebrate an open-air Mass in Lourdes on September 27 and is also scheduled to preside over another Mass at the cathedral in the northeastern French city of Metz on September 28.
The France visit will come shortly after the pope’s trip to Spain in June, highlighting his growing focus on reconnecting with historically Catholic European nations that have become increasingly secular in recent years.
The development also signals a renewed engagement with parts of Europe that observers say received less attention during the papacy of Pope Francis.
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday prayed the “roar of bombs” in the Middle East will cease, as the war triggered by US-Israeli air strikes on Iran extended into its ninth day.
News from the region “continues to arouse deep dismay”, the US-born pope said at the end of the Angelus prayer.
“Added to the episodes of violence and devastation and the widespread climate of hatred and fear, is the fear that the conflict will spread, and that other countries in the region, including beloved Lebanon, may once again sink into instability,” he said.
On Sunday, Iran was preparing to reveal its new supreme leader, after US-Israeli air strikes destroyed fuel dumps and triggered fires that choked much of Tehran in a thick blanket of smoke.
Read Also: Trump Attends Return Of First US Troops Killed In Iran War
Iranian missile-and-drone retaliation has targeted many Gulf countries and further afield in the Middle East.
US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out sending American ground troops into Iran, but continues to insist that the war is progressing speedily.
Leo said he prayed “that the roar of the bombs may cease, the weapons may fall silent, and a space for dialogue may open in which the voices of the peoples may be heard”.
US President Donald Trump attended the return Saturday of the bodies of the first six US soldiers killed during the escalating war with Iran.
Trump, wearing a white “USA” baseball cap and accompanied by several Cabinet members, saluted as each flag-draped case was carried from a military transport plane at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the remains of US troops killed overseas are returned to American soil.
