New Delhi, Sept. 27 -- Pope Leo XIV celebrated an open-air mass on Saturday in front of hundreds of thousands of believers on the French capital's Place de la Concorde and adjoining Champs-Elysees.

According to the Associated Press, the Vatican estimated that 800,000 people attended - about 200,000 more than the number who had registered in advance.

The leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics is on a four-day trip to France, a secular country with deep Catholic roots, on the first official papal visit to France in nearly two decades.

It began on Friday with his arrival and prayer at the restored Notre Dame, the first by a pope since the cathedral's devastating 2019 fire.

It continued Saturday night when Leo arrived in Lourdes in s...