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Pope Francis fell at Polish Mass because he was ‘watching an image of the Madonna'

Pope Francis is helped by Vatican Master of Ceremonies, Mons. Guido Marini as he stumbles on the altar at Czestochowa, Poland. Picture by Gregorio Borgia, Associated Press
Pope Francis is helped by Vatican Master of Ceremonies, Mons. Guido Marini as he stumbles on the altar at Czestochowa, Poland. Picture by Gregorio Borgia, Associated Press Pope Francis is helped by Vatican Master of Ceremonies, Mons. Guido Marini as he stumbles on the altar at Czestochowa, Poland. Picture by Gregorio Borgia, Associated Press

POPE Francis has said he fell during an outdoor Mass in Poland because he was "watching the Madonna".

The 79-year-old fell on Thursday during Mass in Czestochowa, Poland's most popular Catholic shrine.

He said he tripped while sprinkling incense around the altar at the Jasna Gora monastery because: "I was watching (an image of) the Madonna, and I forgot the step.

"I let myself fall and this saved me. Because if I tried to resist it, I would have gotten hurt."

The pontiff visited the monastery during his five-day pilgrimage in southern Poland.

Organisers of World Youth Day estimated 1.5 million young people attended his Mass on Sunday at a meadow near Krakow, many having camped out in sleeping bags from a vigil service of prayer, singing and dance performances the previous evening.

The jamboree was the main reason Pope Francis came to Poland on the trip, which also took him to the former Auschwitz Nazi death camp, where he prayed in silence and reflected on what he called "so much cruelty".

The pontiff began his visit the day after two men linked to Islamic State rushed into a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen in France, and slit the throat of Fr Jacques Hamel (86) as he was celebrating Mass.

This pilgrimage marked the first time the Argentine pope had set foot in eastern Europe.

Flying back to Rome, he was asked by reporters what he thought about Poland and its welcome to him.

Referring to the enormous crowds he drew day after day in a country where St Pope John Paul II was born, Francis joked that "Poland was invaded, this time by young people" - apparently referring to Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland which triggered the Second World War.