By Joshua McElwee and Elizabeth Pineau
PARIS, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Crowds stretched the length of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris on Saturday, as Pope Leo urged Catholics to find happiness in faith, not material things, at the biggest event of his visit to France, an outdoor Mass with an estimated 700,000 people.
Chants of “Leo, Leo” and “Long live the Pope” echoed down the roughly 2 km (1.2 miles) tree-lined boulevard, from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, as people pressed against security barriers for a glimpse of Leo as he arrived in an open-top popemobile.
The vehicle paused frequently as people waved white and yellow Vatican flags and Leo blessed people with disabilities, children and babies passed forward by volunteers.
Attendees included Brigitte Macron, the French president’s wife, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is leading in the polls ahead of next year’s presidential elections, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and Bernard Arnault, the billionaire chairman of French luxury group LVMH.
Cheers rang out in the crowd as Leo thanked God in his sermon for the chance to visit France on a whirlwind four-day, three-city tour, during which he is seeking to repair the Church’s standing after abuse scandals caused nationwide shock.
The pope told Catholics that only their faith would provide true happiness.
“Only God can fill the emptiness within us,” said the pope.
PRAISE FOR POPE’S PEACE MESSAGE
Geraldine Pambou, 42, among those greeting the first US pope, praised Leo for frequently speaking out for peace ahead of the mid-afternoon Mass. The pope drew a rebuke from US President Donald Trump this year for criticising the Iran war.
“The most important thing is that he emphasises world peace,” she said. “There are too many wars.”
More than 600,000 people had registered to attend the Mass, and the Vatican estimated around 700,000 had turned out.
The pope, who has forcefully decried the direction of global leadership in recent months, warned in a speech on Friday at the Paris headquarters of the UN culture and education body, UNESCO, that the UN and other multilateral groups were in crisis.
He also repeated his frequent appeal for the world to reconsider the development of artificial intelligence, telling French leaders that AI could create a future where “a paradise of machines” takes control of the Earth.
Pierre-Marie Estienne, 36, was also in the crowd for Leo’s Mass in central Paris with his wife and their four young children.
“We live in an era of great materialism,” he said before Leo arrived. “There is a lot of evil around us, so we need a message of hope and love.”
POPE VISITS NEWLY BAPTISED CATHOLICS
France, a secular nation where the separation of church and state is enshrined in a 1905 law, has witnessed a steady decline in affiliation to the Catholic Church since World War Two, mirroring a trend in other traditionally Catholic countries.
Although the French Bishops’ Conference points to an increase in baptisms of adults, including a record 21,000 last Easter, a report published by the official statistics agency, INSEE, showed that only 25% of French 18-to-49-year-olds identified as Catholic, compared with 43% a decade earlier.
In a visit on Saturday with newly baptised Catholics at the Catholic University of Paris before the Mass, Leo urged the French church not to be “naively optimistic” about the recent increase in adherents.
“We must recognise, welcome and protect the small flame that the Holy Spirit has kindled in the darkness of the night, the tiny seed that strives to grow even amid the thorns,” he said.
Leo heads later on Saturday to Lourdes, home to a Catholic shrine. He will meet seven French victims of abuse by clergy there on Sunday.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee and Elizabeth Pineau; additional reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Alex Richardson and Timothy Heritage)
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