A Million-Man Mass in Paris

It is perhaps the greatest religious display ever held in an officially secular country. Nearly 800,000 people turned out for a mass on Paris’s Place de la Concorde, with the crowd spilling out along the Champs-Élysées.

[BRIEF]

Pope Leo spurned France’s political leadership, rejecting President Emmanuel Macron’s offer of a state dinner, military honors and the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, the highest distinction France has to offer. Instead, he chose to speak directly to the nation with a mass media spectacle—he was received by the masses like a rock star.

• “Pope mania has really gripped Paris,” said Eleanor Beardsley, npr’s correspondent on the ground.

The Youth Vigil held Friday evening in France’s national stadium, packed with young people, has been compared to the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

• It included a glitzy retelling of the Catholic Church’s history in France, with a 2,500-member choir, knights on horseback and fireworks.

• Tickets for the event sold out in under an hour. It was “like it was Beyonce,” one young fan told Le Parisien, who had 10 members of his family working to get him a ticket.

• “You are the saints of France!” the pope told the crowd.

The Place de la Concorde, France’s largest public square, is the site of the executions of France’s Catholic monarchy and a symbol of the French Revolution. Louis xvi and Marie Antoinette both lost their heads there. No wonder many found striking symbolism in the square filled with enthusiastic worshipers.

Pope Leo celebrated the revival of the Catholic Church in France. He said the surge in new converts “far surpasses statistical and sociological analysis” and “contradicts every defeatist attitude” about the church’s future. However, he also cautioned that the uptick in attendance was still small and said the church must look for many more converts:

Looking at you, dear catechumens and newly baptized persons, I see not only the fruits of the Holy Spirit, who set you on this path, but also the promise of fruitfulness for the church in France. In turn, be missionaries of the gospel in this society!

• Adult baptisms were up 28 percent in 2026 compared to 2025 and triple what they were a decade ago. The surge is most notable in young people ages 18 to 25.

• Pope Leo loves sports, banters about baseball from the Popemobile, and plays Wordle on his smartphone. Young people feel like he gets them.

Do the French want the Catholic Church back? France is legally a secular state. But it’s also known as “the eldest daughter of the church,” as it was one of the first offshoots of the Roman Empire to embrace Catholicism. Could the Catholic Church come back politically in France?

• Many want it to. Beardsley said on npr: “A lot of people told me they appreciated this American pope for how he could stand up to today’s strongmen. They say he has an important moral authority in a world of disorder.”

It’s an important observation. For years, Herbert W. Armstrong warned that Europe, fearful of the strongmen around them, would unite. In August 1978, Mr. Armstrong wrote in the Christian-living Good News magazine:

Europeans want their own united military power! … They have made a real effort toward union in the Common Market. … But they well know there is but one possibility of union in Europe—and that is through the Vatican.

Some in France are already looking to the pope to help them. Shortly after Pope Leo was elected, Mr. Flurry focused Trumpet readers on the “10 unified European states,” which would be “governed by one overarching strongman” as well as “a universalist church that spiritually unifies and guides this political-military superpower.”

“Based on those prophecies, I don’t believe Chancellor Merz and Pope Leo xiv will form this tandem of leaders,” he wrote. “However, as you will read in this Trumpet, both could pave the way for the emergence of these two end-time leaders.”

Pope Leo may be doing just that, helping to undo France’s long-standing tradition of secularism and shifting the country toward a different relationship with the Catholic Church.

Could France once again become Rome’s “eldest daughter” as the Vatican returns to its traditional role of guiding European politics? Mr. Flurry spells out where this Catholic political revival will lead in his article “Where Will These New Leaders Take the World?”

German Town Bans New Holocaust Memorials

Heidenau, in the German state of Saxony, banned new “stumbling stone” Holocaust memorials after a September 24 city council vote. The motion, supported by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and Christian Democratic Union (cdu) parties, is another step for Germany away from remembering the Holocaust as anti-Semitism spikes worldwide.

• Stumbling stones are plaques embedded in sidewalks near former Jewish homes or businesses whose inhabitants were murdered by the Nazis.

• The plaques, often bearing short descriptions of the victims, are meant for pedestrians to stumble on them. They attract attention and remind people of the horrible events that took place here.

• Heidenau, a suburb of Dresden, has a population of 17,000 and has only five total stumbling stones.

Blotting out the Holocaust: The AfD, Germany’s most popular political party, has Nazi sympathies and promotes moving on from German guilt for the Holocaust. Yet it hasn’t been able to influence many levels of the government in changing policy on Holocaust memory. The Heidenau vote is a notable exception.

• The ban couldn’t become law without support from the cdu, which currently governs Germany under Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Germany’s legacy parties generally avoid cooperating with the AfD on any issue. That the cdu felt comfortable cooperating with the AfD on Holocaust commemoration is startling.

• The cdu in Saxony distanced itself from the vote, stating it was “on the side of Jews in Saxony and Germany.”

Minor memorials in minor towns may seem like peripheral issues. But the Trumpet has warned of a resurgence of Nazi culture in Germany for decades. The Heigenau ban is another signal that this resurgence is happening. This is one symptom of dangerous changes in Europe that will shake the world. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explained how in his article “Nazism Rises Again in Germany.”

German, Russian Foreign Ministers Meet

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul met Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in New York on Saturday, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly—the first time German and Russian foreign ministers have met since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

• Russia claimed Germany requested the meeting and tried to restrict media access to it.

• Wadephul said the next day he wanted to meet Lavrov because of a growing crisis in food exports, likely a reference to Ukraine’s reduced ability to export wheat. Wadephul also claimed they discussed the recent incident of a Russian drone bomb found at Leipzig airport, saying it crossed a line and that Germany was “ready to resist and to defend ourselves.”

Despite the tough talk, Wadephul said Friday he looked forward to seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin later this year at a G-20 summit.

• United States President Donald Trump has invited Putin to the G-20 summit in Miami in December. If accepted, it will be the first time Putin has joined the conference since 2022.

• While some prominent diplomats haven’t reacted favorably, Wadephul said the summit could be among the “opportunities” Germany and the West “would have to take advantage of” to bring Putin “to the negotiating table.”

Germany claims to oppose Russia’s war on Ukraine, but this is not the first time it has sidelined its Western allies to appease Russia.

For years—sometimes secretly, sometimes openly—Germany has partnered with Russia while both countries have expanded their spheres of influence in Europe. Wadephul’s comments may signal that Germany wants to return to it. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry elaborated on this pact in his 2018 article “Germany and Russia’s Secret War Against America.”

Trump offered to sell American weapons to China: U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said President Donald Trump asked Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping during Xi’s recent three-day visit to the United States whether China wanted to buy American weapons. Perdue made the remark on Fox News Sunday while defending Trump’s record of arms sales to Taiwan and describing the president as always in deal-making mode. Such a sale would violate existing U.S. law, which has maintained an arms embargo on China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.