LOURDES, France — Pope Leo XIV issued a firm call to conversion from sin and error in the Church, and invited all to repent and do penance, at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sunday.
Mary’s call to conversion in her message to St. Bernadette “also concerns the Church herself as she makes her earthly journey. She must have the courage to begin with herself,” he said at Mass on Sept. 27.
“In order to heal the deep wounds, infidelities and painful errors that have occurred within her, we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord’s purifying gaze. Recognizing our own faults is essential to our spiritual growth,” the pontiff said.
In 2021, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) published a nearly 2,500-page final report, estimating that 216,000 children were abused by priests, deacons, monks, or nuns in France from 1950 to 2020.
Leo is scheduled to meet later on Sunday with seven victims of clerical sexual abuse in France.
Lourdes is an evocative backdrop to the private meeting, since it is among the first shrines to cover artwork by the accused sexual abuser Father Marko Rupnik, currently on trial at the Vatican.
Rupnik’s mosaics decorating the front of the Basilica of the Rosary were covered ahead of Leo’s visit and will remain covered indefinitely, according to the local bishop.
The pope celebrated Mass on a prairie across the river Gave de Pau from the grotto of the apparitions on the third day of his Sept. 25-28 visit to France.
Pilgrims from France and around the world gathered on the grassy hill and along the streets of the shrine. Some waved flags or held banners of sacred images. A number of pilgrims arrived in wheelchairs. Around 150,000 people attended the Mass, according to the Vatican.
Claire Banks, a nurse from the UK, said she has traveled over 100 times to Lourdes.
“It was too good of an opportunity to miss coming here and seeing the pope. I think he’s wonderful,” she told EWTN News. She described an “electric atmosphere” at the shrine since Leo’s arrival.
Libby Frank, another Mass attendee, is also from the UK, but has lived in Lourdes for 40 years. She recently retired after working for a charity that brings sick people to the shrine.
“I worked for three papal visits and now I’ve come to one papal visit to enjoy it with my family and friends and just be part of the community,” she said, referencing two visits by St. Pope John Paul II in 1983 and 2004, and one by Pope Benedict in 2008.
“There’s been a phenomenal amount of excitement locally waiting for Leo to come visit. The town [of Lourdes] has really gotten behind everything that’s happening,” she said.
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is among the most popular Catholic shrines in the world, built on the site of Mary’s apparitions to St. Bernadette in 1858. It is particularly visited by the sick, who come to bathe in or drink its healing spring water.
In his homily, Pope Leo noted that a “call to conversion, both tender and urgent,” was a central part of the message the Virgin Mary entrusted to Bernadette, and that “it is today, not tomorrow, that we must repent.”
He said Jesus is quite direct about the call to repentance: “As St. Luke tells us, ‘Unless you repent, you will all perish.’ But he also extends our horizon beyond this earthly life to the horizon of eternal life.”
“Did not the Virgin Mary say to St. Bernadette, ‘I do not promise to make you happy in this world but in the next’?” Leo said.
The pope noted that we can often forget this in an age and society focused on progress and material wellbeing.
Eternal life is already won for us by Jesus’ sacrifice, he continued, but “the obstacle to grace and eternal life — the only obstacle to this love — is sin.”
The Holy Father called everyone to do penance, an act of love for God and for our brothers and sisters, “who do not heed this call to conversion, and whose sins lead them towards death.”
“We want to make amends for the wounds our sins have dealt to [God’s] heart,” he said.
Addressing the many sick, elderly, and disabled people present at the Mass, Leo said their suffering, if lived in a “spirit of offering,” can take part “in the redemptive work that the world so greatly needs.”
“In this way, you are truly at the heart of the Church, and your role is irreplaceable,” he said.
“In the face of current trends that seek to redefine the value of human life in illness, suffering and old age, the grotto of Massabielle stands as a place of Christian hope,” he said. “Here, no one is turned away due to their frailty.”
Earlier in the morning, Leo met with France’s bishops at the shrine, where he praised their courage in opposing the recent legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the country.
“I encourage you to persevere, together with all people of good will who uphold the same values,” he told the bishops’ conference.
At the end of Mass, before praying the Angelus, the pope invited those present to pray the rosary for peace, and to offer concrete acts of penance and mercy.
“It was here that the Immaculate Virgin appeared to St. Bernadette with the rosary and, as it were, guided her in prayer,” he said. “For this reason, today I invite all the faithful and all Christian communities to pray the holy rosary throughout the coming month of October, with the particular intention that wars may cease and that peace may be established among peoples in conflict.”
Elliot Hartley contributed to this report.
This story was updated at 7:14 a.m. ET with more information about the Mass and the pope’s meeting with bishops.
