Pope to celebrate Mass in Lourdes

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Pope Benedict XVI has joined pilgrims in the southern French town of Lourdes, one of the most revered Roman Catholic shrines, on a visit to the country.

The pontiff is in the town to mark the 150th anniversary of what many Roman Catholics believe was a vision of the Virgin Mary by a young local girl.

The Pope is to say Sunday Mass in Lourdes. On Saturday, he held an open-air Mass in the capital, Paris.

It is the pontiff's first visit to France since his election in 2005.

After his arrival in Lourdes, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Benedict XVI prayed at the Grotto of Massabielle, also known as the Cave of Apparitions.

About 200,000 pilgrims have made the trip to the town, hoping to see the Pope's first visit to the shrine.

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More than 3,000 police officers have been mobilised to oversee the papal Mass.

France is a Roman Catholic country but Sunday Mass attendance is now below 10% and strict laws separate Church and state.

'Pagan' idols

The Pope told the crowds in Paris that he was delighted to be in France before going on to condemn as a modern-day plague the passion for power, possessions and money.

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Thousands gather to hear the Pope's Paris mass

"Has not our modern world created its own idols?" he asked in his address.

"Has it not imitated, perhaps inadvertently, the pagans of antiquity, by diverting man from his true end, from the joy of living eternally with God...

"Have not money, the thirst for possessions, for power and even for knowledge, diverted man from his true destiny?"

Arriving in Paris on Friday, the Pope was met by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he praised for promoting the role of religion in society.

France staunchly upholds a 1905 law that enshrines the separation of Church and state, but Mr Sarkozy has supported efforts to ease the country's strict secularism law.

Before his visit, a French newspaper poll showed that more than half of those questioned had a positive view of Benedict XVI.