Pope Benedict, on a pilgrimage to the shrine where the faithful believe the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant girl 150 years ago, told a crowd yesterday that love can be stronger than all the evil in the world. The 81-year-old Benedict said a Mass for more than 150,000 people on a field in the shadow of the sanctuary built over the spot of the apparitions in 1858. Pilgrims flocked here from dozens of countries for the pope?s three-day visit, his 10th abroad and his first to France. Many were in wheelchairs or stretchers and helped by volunteers.

In the past 150 years, the Church has recognized as «miracles» more than 65 medically inexplicable healings of sick pilgrims who visited Lourdes. Benedict told his listeners to be true to their faith because «it tells us that there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weakness and sins». He told a crowd wrapped in jackets against an unusually cold late summer day that «the power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us».

Since his arrival in France on Friday, the pope has been encouraging the country?s Catholics to speak out confidently in a country where laicite, the separation of church and state that often relegates faith to the private sphere, is part of the national psyche. Religion has re-emerged as a factor in public life, especially because of the growth of Islam, and French Catholics have increasingly spoken out on social issues.