A picture released yesterday by the Vatican press office of Pope Francis delivering the traditional ‘Urbi et Orbi’ from the balcony of St Peter’s basilica during Easter celebrations.

 

By Philip Pullella,, Reuters/Vatican City

 

In his Easter address before a huge crowd, Pope Francis yesterday denounced the “immense wastefulness” in the world while many go hungry and called for an end to conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Africa.

“We ask you, Lord Jesus, to put an end to all war and every conflict, whether great or small, ancient or recent,” he said in his “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message.

Francis, marking the second Easter season of his pontificate, celebrated a Mass to an overflowing crowd of at least 150,000 in St. Peter’s Square and beyond. The crowd stretched back along all of Via della Conciliazione, the boulevard between the Vatican and the Tiber River.

Speaking under a sunny sky after a midnight rainstorm soaked the tens of thousands of flowers that bedecked the square, Francis weaved his message around the suffering of people across the globe.

He prayed to God to “help us to overcome the scourge of hunger, aggravated by conflicts and by the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible”.

Since his election as the first non-European Pope in 1,300 years, Francis had made defence of the poor a hallmark of his papacy, often criticising developed nations and the excesses of capitalism and consumerism.

The 77-year-old Pope, wearing white vestments for the service, prayed for the protection of those members of society who are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and abandonment - women, children, the elderly and immigrants.

Easter is the most important day on the liturgical calendar because it commemorates the day Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead after his crucifixion and the Church sees it as a symbol of hope, peace and reconciliation among peoples and nations.

The Pope called on the international community to “boldly negotiate the peace long awaited and long overdue” in Syria, where more than 150,000 people have been killed in the civil war, a third of them civilians. Millions have fled the country.

“We pray in a particular way for Syria, that all those suffering the effects of the conflict can receive needed humanitarian aid and that neither side will again use deadly force, especially against the defenceless civil population,” he said.

Francis asked God to “enlighten and inspire the initiatives that promote peace in Ukraine so that all those involved, with the support of the international community, will make every effort to prevent violence and, in a spirit of unity and dialogue, chart a path for the country’s future”.

He also asked for an end to violence in Iraq, Venezuela, South Sudan and the Central Africa Republic.

Francis appealed for more medical attention for the victims of the deadly Ebola epidemic in Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and care for those suffering from many other diseases spread through neglect and dire poverty.

He called for a “halt to the brutal terrorist attacks” in Nigeria, an apparent reference to Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which earlier this month abducted some 130 girls from a school in the north of the country.

The Easter Sunday services were the culmination of four hectic days of Holy Week activities for the Pontiff.

Next Sunday, he will canonise Pope John Paul II, who reigned from 1978 to 2005, and Pope John XXIII, who was Pontiff from 1958 to 1963 and called the Second Vatican Council, a landmark meeting that modernised the Church.

Hundreds of thousands of people are due to come to Rome for the canonisations, the first time two popes are be made saints simultaneously and the first canonisations of a pope since 1954.

 


Cardinal’s luxury flat raises eyebrows

An Italian cardinal is moving into a 600sq m Vatican apartment in apparent contradiction with Pope Francis’s call for a “poor Church”, Italian daily La Repubblica reported yesterday.

Tarcisio Bertone is the Vatican’s former secretary of state, a role equivalent to prime minister, and the report said his luxury lodgings were stirring unease as Francis has pushed for clergymen to be more humble.

The flat also has a 100sq m roof terrace and is next to St Martha’s Residence - a Vatican hotel where Francis has taken up home, spurning the grander Apostolic Palace where popes usually live.

La Repubblica said that Bertone’s flat would be about 10 times bigger than the apartment where Francis is living and that he was planning to move in before the summer after extensive building work.

It said the house combined an apartment of up to 400 square metres formerly inhabited by the head of the gendarmerie under John Paul II and the roughly 200sq m flat where a Vatican monsignor lived.

Bertone’s stint as secretary of state under Benedict XVI was highly divisive in the Vatican administration and top clerics had asked the-then Pope to dismiss him.

He was accused by critics of being too authoritarian and too connected with sleazy Italian politics.

Just before his removal by Francis in October last year, Bertone lashed out saying he was the victim of “moles and vipers” in the Vatican system.

Francis last month accepted the resignation of Germany’s controversial bishop of Limburg, who had come under fire for his luxury lifestyle.

Franz-Peter Terbartz-van Elst, nicknamed the “bling bishop” by the media, was criticised for his official residence, which included a museum, conference halls, a chapel and private apartments.

The project was valued at 5.5mn euros but the cost ballooned to 31mn euros ($43mn) - all using the revenue from a religious tax in Germany.

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