It was the first papal trip to the country in nearly two decades.

Pope Leo XIV led tens of thousands of people in a candlelight rosary procession Sept. 27 in the Marian shrine of Lourdes, saying that he had come as "a pilgrim among pilgrims."

France may have a highly secularized culture, but it has given Pope Leo XIV a superstar welcome.

Pope Leo opened his pilgrimage in Lourdes with a prayer at the Grotto of the Apparitions, the site where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 and one of the faith's most-visited shrines.

In the Marian shrine of Lourdes, Pope Leo XIV prayed for the sick and the suffering and drank from healing spring water in the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858.

Pope Leo XIV continued an apostolic journey to France on Saturday by celebrating mass in front of 700,000 people at the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Pope Leo on Monday defended his decision to vocally oppose assisted dying initiatives while in France, acknowledging he may have entered the political fray two months after the country approved such a measure,

Pope Leo XIV prayed at the Massabielle Grotto and planned to meet with miracle cure recipients, sexual abuse victims and the sick during his Lourdes visit.