Lourdes, France - More than 150,000 people gathered in the southern French pilgrimage site of Lourdes on Sunday as Pope Benedict XVI celebrated a Mass to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the appearance of the Virgin Mary to a young peasant girl.

The open-air Mass was the symbolic high point of the 81-year-old pontiff's four-day visit to France, his first since he was elected to succeed the popular John Paul II in April 
2005.