Pope Leo XIV Leads Rosary, Torchlight Procession at Lourdes Shrine

Pope Leo XIV took part in the prayer of the Holy Rosary and a torchlight procession at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, as his four-day apostolic journey to France brought him to one of Catholicism's most visited pilgrimage sites.

The visit marks the first official papal state visit to France in 18 years. The sanctuary, set in the foothills near the Spanish border, draws millions of pilgrims each year, among them sick and disabled believers who come hoping for a cure from the spring water associated with the Lourdes grotto.

The shrine's standing rests on the reported visions of Bernadette Soubirous, a young girl from a modest background. Uneducated, with no grounding in religion and suffering from asthma, she reported 18 visions of a lady dressed in white at the Grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes between February and July 1858.

The Catholic Church later accepted that the visions were of the Virgin Mary. Bernadette's accounts, together with the subsequent discovery of spring waters held to have healing properties, led the Church to build a sanctuary at the site.

In 1866, Bernadette left Lourdes to join the convent of the Sisters of Charity in Nevers, where she remained until her death at the age of 35. Pope Pius XI canonized her in 1933 as Saint Bernadette.