Pope Leo XIV leads a mass in the Tor Vergata district of Rome, as part of Jubilee of Youth, on August 3, 2025. Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP
Rome: Pope Leo XIV presided over a final mass in Rome for over one million young people Sunday, the culmination of a youth pilgrimage that has drawn Catholics from across the world.
The week-long event ending Sunday, a highlight of the Jubilee holy year, was an enormous undertaking for the Vatican, with a half a million young pilgrims in Rome for most of the week.
On Saturday night, before an twilight vigil led by the pope, organisers had confirmed the attendance of 800,000 people in the vast, open-air space on Rome's eastern outskirts, and on Sunday the Vatican said that number had grown to one million people.
Most of those attending slept on the ground in tents, in sleeping bags or or mats, awaiting Sunday's mass under sunny skies.
To music from a choir, green-robed bishops began filling an enormous stage covered with a golden arch and massive cross before Leo, who arrived by helicopter, began mass.
The Vatican said 450 bishops and around 700 priests were participating in the mass.
