Pope Francis appeared in public again on Saturday leading the Easter Vigil Mass in St Peter’s Basilica a day after unusually cold weather in Rome prevented him from attending the Good Friday evening procession at the Colosseum.
The 86-year-old Pope is recovering from bronchitis that recently led to a three-day hospital stay. On Sunday tens of thousands of faithful are expected to join the Pope in St. Peter’s Square for Easter Mass and listen to his address on world conflicts at the end of Holy Week.
Francisco arrived in a wheelchair. He engraved on the wax of a tall candle a cross, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet—alpha and omega—and the numbers of this year.
Then a clergyman carried the lighted candle down the central aisle of the Basilica. He was followed by dozens of cardinals and other prelates, each with a smaller lit candle.
“The Church calls her sons and daughters, scattered throughout the world, to come together to watch and pray,” Pope Francis said at the start of the service.
The mass in the Basilica during the vigil of the most important day in Christianity has become the occasion for the pontiffs to baptize adults from all over the world.
Those selected to be baptized at this year’s vigil were eight believers from Albania, the United States, Nigeria, Italy and Venezuela, the Vatican announced.
