VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has offered an Easter Sunday prayer for those killed and suffering from the coronavirus, which has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people worldwide. Breaking with centuries of tradition, the Pope livestreamed Easter Sunday mass to allow the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics celebrate their holiest holiday under a coronavirus lockdown.
“Today my thoughts turn in the first place to the many who have been directly affected by the coronavirus: the sick, those who have died and family members who mourn the loss of their loved ones, to whom, in some cases, they were unable even to bid a final farewell,” the pope said from an empty Saint Peter’s Basilica as quoted by numerous news agencies and other media outlets on Sunday.
The Pope also called for the reduction or forgiveness of the debt of poor nations suffering in the face of the coronavirus outbreak. “May all nations be put in a position to meet the greatest needs of the moment through the reduction, if not the forgiveness, of the debt burdening the balance sheets of the poorest nations,” he said.
Francis cut a lonely but striking figure when he slowly entered a dark and starkly empty Vatican square in his white robe for a torch-lit Good Friday procession. The pope has openly admitted that he was struggling along with everyone else to make sense of these extraordinary times.
“We have to respond to our confinement with all our creativity,” Francis said in an interview published by several Catholic newspapers this week. “We can either get depressed and alienated … or we can get creative.”
The Pope urged some 1.2 billion Catholics during the Easter vigil Saturday night, “Do not be afraid, do not yield to fear,” as he delivered a “message of hope” in the coronavirus crisis. (Taken from wires)
