Pope Leo XIV breaks with protocol at Lourdes to greet sick pilgrims
The pope celebrated Mass for about 150,000 pilgrims on the Prairie at Lourdes on September 27, preaching on penance and human dignity, and later stopped to speak with sick pilgrims one by one
Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass at Lourdes on September 27, 2026, before about 150,000 pilgrims gathered on the Prairie, the large meadow facing the Grotto of Massabielle, where the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous. His homily dealt with penance, human dignity and eternal life.
The pope began by recalling the promise Mary made to Bernadette: "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next." Taking that line as his theme, he told the faithful not to fear the storms of the world and said that "the Holy Mother of God watches over your journey."
The urgency of conversion
Penance was central to the homily. "It is today, not tomorrow, that we must be converted," he said, citing the Gospel, and added: "If you do not repent, you will all perish." Mary's promise "shakes our contemporary mentalities," he said, in a society focused on material progress that often loses sight of eternity.
The pope put questions directly to the crowd, asking whether they are slow to understand, whether they too easily consider themselves without sin, and whether they practice penance enough.
The dignity of the sick
Leo XIV gave particular attention to the sick who were present. He told them their crutches, their wheelchairs and their hidden tears are not obstacles, but the place where they are fully respected and transformed by God's infinite love. Lourdes, he said, is "the blessed place of a profession of faith in the beauty and the sacredness of life."
He also spoke about currents that seek to redefine the value of human life in the face of illness and old age. He did not mention France's recent euthanasia law. "The Grotto of Massabielle stands as a shrine of Christian hope," he said. "No human law should make you lose the certainty of your dignity," he added, rejecting the idea that what is legally permitted is therefore morally acceptable.
He asked health care workers to be "passionate servants of life," warning that "medicine can never become the servant of programmed death." At Lourdes, he said, "fragility is not hidden, but becomes a sacred encounter."
Greeting the sick
After the Mass, Leo XIV met the staff of the Accueil Notre-Dame, one of the shrine's hospitality centers for sick and disabled pilgrims. At the end of that meeting he broke with protocol to approach as many sick pilgrims as he could in person. He stopped in front of each one to greet them, listen and talk briefly, in an echo of the Gospel words, "I was sick and you visited me" (Matthew 25:36).
Private meeting with abuse victims
The day also included a private meeting between the pope and seven victims of clerical abuse in France. At that meeting he said the Church must undergo a deep conversion and repeated its commitments to prevention and to repairing the harm done.
A mission to bring hope
Leo XIV closed his homily by asking pilgrims to take the consolation of Lourdes back to their communities and to become "missionaries of hope." After the Mass, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes thanked the pope on behalf of everyone present and spoke about the central place of the Church's mission today.
