Pope Leo XIV urges French converts to persevere in their faith

Pope Leo XIV met with young French Catholic converts on Saturday, encouraging them to persevere in their faith "even amid the thorns" of a secular society, as he continued the second day of his four-day visit to France.

The meeting came ahead of a large open-air Mass the pope is due to celebrate at Place de la Concorde in central Paris, an event organisers expect to draw an estimated 600,000 people.

The pontiff's remarks to the young converts touched on the challenges of maintaining religious faith within a secular public culture, a theme that has featured prominently during his visit to France, a country with a strong tradition of secularism alongside deep historical Catholic roots.

Saturday's events form part of a broader four-day programme that has included engagements with various communities during the pope's time in the country. The scale of the planned Mass, with attendance expected in the hundreds of thousands, underscores the significant public interest generated by the visit, even in a country where regular church attendance has declined significantly in recent decades.

The pope's encouragement to converts to hold to their faith despite social pressures reflects a message he has emphasised elsewhere during the visit: that religious commitment can coexist with, and even find renewed meaning within, a predominantly secular environment.