Pope gives blessing to eerily empty square
Vatican suspends public audiences
St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican is normally swarming with tens of thousands of visitors hoping to get a glimpse of Pope Francis as he delivers his Sunday remarks.
But for the second Sunday this month, the square stood eerily empty as Italy remains on lockdown due to the novel coronavirus.
With the square closed to the public, the pope delivered his blessing from inside the Apostolic Library.
“In this situation of pandemic, in which we find ourselves living more or less isolated, we are invited to rediscover and deepen the value of the communion that unites all the members of the church,” Francis said in his remarks after the Angelus prayer, which was livestreamed by Vatican News.
Francis praised the medical personnel and the volunteers who are helping the elderly, poor and homeless, according to Vatican News.
He also lauded Roman Catholic priests for “creativity” in tending to their flocks — especially in the region of Lombardy, northern Italy, where thousands of people have been hospitalized or are in quarantine.
He said their efforts demonstrated there are “a thousand ways to be near” to the faithful, if not physically.
After his noon remarks, the pope left the Vatican and visited two churches to pray.
He headed first to a Rome basilica, St. Mary Major, where he often stops to give thanks after returning from trips abroad. There he prayed before an icon of the Virgin Mary dedicated to the “salvation of the Roman people.”
After that, the 83-year-old pope left the basilica, near Rome’s central train station, and headed toward central Piazza Venezia, strolling along a brief stretch of Via del Corso, a noted shopping street for Romans. He then ducked into a church that most tourists pass by: St. Marcel on the Corso.
The church keeps a “miraculous crucifix that in 1522 was carried in procession through the neighborhoods of the city so that the Great Plague of Rome ended,” Vatican spokesman
Matteo Bruni said.
Some 90 minutes after he left the Vatican, Francis was back.
In ordinary times, the Via del Corso would be thronged with Sunday strollers and window-shoppers, but very few Romans are on the streets these days. A national lockdown allows people to go out to work, to purchase essentials like food or medicine, or to take care of those in need.
A sole cyclist was pedaling down the street when Francis, in his white robes and with a security detail walking behind, approached the St. Marcel church.
The pope’s prayerful foray across town came just hours after the Holy See announced that the Vatican’s Holy Week ceremonies will go ahead without the public Italy tries to contain its coronavirus outbreak.
The Vatican announced Sunday that its Holy Week celebrations leading up to Easter, which typically draw thousands of pilgrims from around the world, will be closed to the public because of the “current global public health emergency.”
The Pope’s weekly public audiences have been suspended until April 12 — Easter Sunday — but will be livestreamed by Vatican News.
Although Easter itself wasn’t specified in the Vatican statements, it appeared likely restrictions on large gatherings might well continue in Italy. The Italian government has said it would decide whether measures, now in effect through April 3, would need extending or tightening.
Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday on April 5, with tradition calling for an outdoor Mass in the square also on that day, when faithful clutch palm fronds and olive branches.