Pope Francis arrives on the finish of the mass on Palm Sunday in St. Peter’s Sq. at The Vatican, Sunday, April 13, 2025.
Gregorio Borgia/AP
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Gregorio Borgia/AP
VATICAN CITY — A convalescing Pope Francis greeted the group in St. Peter’s Sq. on Palm Sunday, wishing greater than 20,000 devoted a “Good Palm Sunday, a very good Holy Week,” in yet one more reassuring public signal of his restoration from a life-threatening battle with double pneumonia.
Many within the crowd reached out to the touch Francis’ hand or clothes as he was introduced in a wheelchair down a ramp to the primary altar, the place he issued his temporary greeting right into a microphone. The 88-year-old pope was not sporting nasal tubes for supplemental oxygen, as he had throughout the same look final Sunday.
On his manner again to St. Peter’s Basilica from the place he had emerged, Francis stopped to bless a rosary, and provided sweet to a boy who greeted him.
The 88-year-old Francis is coming into his fourth week of convalescence throughout which medical doctors have suggested him to keep away from crowds. Whereas Francis is clearly keen to indicate he’s feeling higher, he has not spoken quite a lot of phrases in public as he recovers from a extreme respiratory disaster. The Vatican mentioned it was ready to advise on what position he might play in upcoming Holy Week occasions main as much as Easter Sunday.
It was his second in St. Peter’s Sq. earlier than a crowd, following final Sunday’s surprising look that thrilled the devoted. He additionally met privately with King Charles III and Queen Camilla this week, and made an impromptu tour of St. Peter’s Basilica, stopping to wish, and to thank a pair of restorers for his or her work on the basilica’s masterpieces.
On Saturday, the eve of Holy Week, Francis went to the St. Mary Main Basilica in central Rome to wish privately earlier than a favourite icon of the Virgin Mary, Salus Populi Romani. The basilica, which he usually visits earlier than and after his international journeys, was additionally his first cease after leaving the Gemelli hospital on March 23.
Within the conventional Sunday blessing, the pontiff thanked the devoted for his or her prayers. “At the moment of bodily weak spot, they assist me to really feel God’s closeness, compassion and tenderness much more.” For the ninth week, together with his five-week hospitalization beginning Feb. 14, the blessing was delivered as a textual content.
The pope provided prayers for these struggling within the battle in Sudan, which marks its second anniversary on Tuesday, and for Lebanon, the place civil conflict started 50 years in the past, in addition to for peace in Ukraine, the Center East, Congo, Myanmar and South Sudan.
In a ready Palm Sunday homily learn by a high Vatican cardinal, Francis urged the devoted to hold the cross “of those that undergo round us” to mark the beginning of the solemn Holy Week.
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, vice dean of the Faculty of Cardinals, led the celebrations, main a procession of cardinals across the piazza’s central obelisk carrying an ornately braided palm that recollects Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, when crowds waved palm branches to honor him.
The preliminary welcome contrasts with the struggling that follows, main as much as his crucifixion, which Christians observe on Good Friday, adopted by his resurrection, celebrated on Easter Sunday.
The devoted emerged from St. Peter’s Sq. carrying blessed palm fronds or olive branches to mark the event.
