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Pope Benedict XVI celebrated an open-air mass in Lourdes on Sunday, leading more than 100,000 faithful in prayer in the French town that is one of the most revered Christian shrines.
   
The mass on the prairie of the sanctuary marked the 150th anniverary of the Vatican-recognised apparitions of the Virign Mary to French peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous.
   
Under clear skies, the pope arrived aboard his popemobile, waving and smiling to the faithful who had come early to secure a spot on the sprawling field near the grotto where Mary is said to have appeared in 1858.
   
The 81-year-old pontiff arrived in the southwestern town in the foothills of the Pyrenees on Saturday for a pilgrimage after leading a mass in central Paris attended by 260,000 people.
   
For the German pope, the Lourdes visit is an opportunity to shed his image in France as a cold theologian lacking the charisma of his predecessor John Paul II.
   
"He is a man of great depth and I feel close to him," said Jeanne, 70, from Saint-Etienne, in central France. "He may not be as telegenic as John Paul, but he has a deep faith."
   
During an emotional visit to the shrine in 2004, a year before his death, John Paul declared himself "a sick man among the sick" as he struggled with advanced Parkinson's disease.
   
Organisers said they expected 150,000 faithful at the Sunday services, fewer than originally planned due to several days of rain and a cold snap.
   
The leader of the world's one billion Catholics is making his first visit to France since his election in 2005.
   
After visiting a church where Bernadette was baptised and the small room where her family lived in poverty, the pope went to the grotto where she had 18 "encounters" with the Madonna.
   
The pontiff knelt in prayer at the grotto of Masiabelle where the mother of Jesus Christ is said to have appeared.
   
He also drank a glass of water from the "miracle" springs believed to hold healing powers and which was presented to him by a young girl.
   
The papal visit comes as France is facing a freefall in the number of churchgoers, with only 10 percent of Catholics saying they attend mass regularly.
   
Benedict was to meet with French bishops following the church services to discuss the state of French Catholicism.
   
At the Paris mass, the pope appealed to young Catholics to shun the false "idols" of the modern world and told them not to be "afraid" of a religious life.
   
Benedict is to hold two masses in Lourdes, reaching out to the sick and disabled who come to Lourdes in search of a miracle from the spring water or pools.
   
Thousands of "miracle" cures have been claimed after visits to Lourdes but the Catholic Church has only certified 67.
   
Benedict is to lead a special mass on Monday dedicated to the sick and ends his pilgrimage at a hospital chapel where Bernadette received the sacrament of the first communion.
   
Six million people visit Lourdes annually but the figure is expected to top eight million during this anniversary year.
   
Almost 4,000 security forces were on duty for the papal visit to the town.
   
The pope arrived in Paris on Friday, meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy who has called for easing France's strict secularism defined in a 1905 law on the separation of church and state.
   
Sarkozy, a twice-divorced lapsed Catholic, broke a French taboo during a trip to the Vatican last year by calling for a "positive secularism" that would allow space for religion in public life.
   
The pope sought to build on Sarkozy's position, saying Europe faced "disaster" if it turned away from religion.