Paris/Lourdes, France  - Following a torchlight procession late Saturday through the pilgrimage site of Lourdes in southern France, Pope Benedict XVI ended his second day in the country with a plea not to forget victims of violence, hatred and poverty.

"This procession is a time of great ecclesial joy but also a time of seriousness: the intentions we bring emphasize our profound communion with all those who suffer," he told the tens of thousands of marchers who braved the unseasonable cold and rain to take part.

"We think of innocent victims who suffer from violence, war, terrorism and famine; those who bear the consequences of injustices, scourges and disasters, hatred and oppression; of attacks on their human dignity and fundamental rights; on their freedom to act and think," the pope said.

"We also think of those undergoing family problems or suffering caused by unemployment, illness, infirmity, loneliness or their situation as immigrants."

The 81-year-old pontiff was in Lourdes on a pilgrimage to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary to a 14-year-old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous.

The 1858 event has made Lourdes one of the most popular Christian pilgrimage sites in the world, with an estimated 6 million visitors expected this year.

Earlier Friday, Benedict XVI rode in his Popemobile along the Route of the Jubilee, which visited several stations in Soubirous' life.

These included the church where she was baptized, the house in which she lived with her family and the Grotto of Massabielle, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to her on 18 occasions.

The pope flew to Lourdes from Paris after more than 260,000 people took part in an open-air mass he celebrated at the Esplanade des Invalides park in the heart of the French capital.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and Justice Minister Rachida Dati were among the celebrants, as were some 60,000 young people who had spent the night on the Esplanade in anticipation of the event.

Thousands more followed the mass on giant screens set up on the Left Bank.

In a 20-minute homily, the pope warned the young about the worship of idols.

"Has not our modern world created its own idols? Has it not imitated, perhaps inadvertently, the pagans of antiquity by diverting man from his true end?" he asked.

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

Benedict XVI is to celebrate another mass Sunday in Lourdes and will lead a mass for the sick on Monday, before returning to the Vatican. (dpa)