Amid a low hum, a helicopter circled in the gray skies over Paris. Striking aerial footage was broadcast across dozens of giant screens set up along the two-kilometer route between the Arc de Triomphe and Place de la Concorde. A vast, colorful crowd pressed on either side of the Champs-Elysées, beneath yellowing leaves, to attend the Mass given by the pope on the afternoon of Saturday, September 26, in the heart of the French capital. Dressed in white, Leo XIV slowly made his way down the iconic avenue in his popemobile, moving at a walking pace. He waved to the right and left, blessed the children handed to him, and smiled gently.

For the first papal visit to Paris in eighteen years, major resources were mobilized: 17,000 volunteers, 15,000 police officers and gendarmes, and a budget of €27 million. As worshippers continued to arrive, sometimes without tickets, volunteers in identifiable yellow T-shirts advised people to head beyond Place de l'Etoile, toward Avenue de la Grande-Armée.

"I'm surprised there are so many believers in Paris," said Andrianarison Matriniaha, a harmonica player living in the Paris region. He is Protestant, but that hardly matters: "There's only one God." The young man was accompanied by his aunt, Marie-Irene Hanitriniaina (whose last name means "fragrance of life"), who traveled from Madagascar just to attend this giant Mass. She filmed the crowd waving white and yellow Vatican flags on her phone, marveling at seeing so many different people gathered together, "from all origins and all races." You have 79.79% of this article left to read. The rest is forrs only.