Published on 26/09/2026 – 10:02 GMT+2
Pope Leo XIV will travel to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes on Saturday as part of his official visit to France this week.
Lourdes, a small town nestled in the Pyrenees near the Spanish border, draws millions of pilgrims each year. It is a major Catholic pilgrimage site, renowned for the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.
This will be the first pontiff to visit Lourdes since Pope Benedict XVI, who came in September 2008 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the apparitions.
Bernadette Soubirous, a modest young girl, reported seeing a lady in white at the Massabielle grotto 18 times between February and July 1858. During the ninth apparition, she heard the words: “Go and drink at the spring and wash yourself there.”
The Catholic Church officially recognised the apparitions as those of the Virgin Mary in 1862 and later built a shrine at the site. Since then, the grotto has attracted millions of visitors from around the globe.
Today Lourdes receives roughly three million pilgrims annually, making it the fourth most visited Catholic shrine worldwide after the Vatican, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and the Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil. Although its permanent population is only about 13,000, the town offers nearly 10,000 hotel rooms and around 21,200 beds.
Accommodating the crowds can be difficult; many hotels raise rates dramatically during major events. For Pope Leo’s visit, some rooms are reportedly priced above €2,000 per night, and authorities expect nearly 200,000 people to gather over two days, with about 150,000 registered for the shrine celebrations.
The visit coincides with a surge in baptisms in France. Over the past five years, adult baptisms have risen by 28 % and teenage baptisms by 10 %, reaching a total of 21,386 in 2026—more than three times the number a decade earlier.
Leo XIV, who spent two days in Paris, will arrive at Tarbes‑Lourdes‑Pyrénées airport on Saturday evening. His itinerary begins with a Mass at the Massabielle grotto.
The pope is also scheduled to meet privately with seven survivors of sexual abuse.
This trip occurs at a sensitive moment for the French Catholic Church. A 2021 independent commission estimated that 216,000 minors were abused by clergy between 1950 and 2020, a figure that rises to about 330,000 when lay workers are included.
Additional sources • AP