Pope Leo XIV in France: A Nation That Left the Church Fills a Square for the Mass
A four-day papal visit to France, September 25-28, 2026 -- a vigil before the relic of the Holy Tunic, a meeting with President Macron and a UNESCO address, an outdoor Mass on the Place de la Concorde drawing some 600,000 registered attendees, and a visit to Lourdes to meet with survivors of clergy abuse -- in a nation where only about half its people now identify as Catholic. What draws hundreds of thousands to a public Mass, what the Mass actually claims to accomplish, and a direct, Scripture-based comparison of the Roman Mass with the Lord's Supper of the Bible (John 19:30; Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:26; Hebrews 7:27, 9:12, 10:10, 10:18).