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Pope Francis, who was hospitalized this week for bronchitis, thanked the faithful for their prayers for his health after presiding over the Palm Mass this Sunday in San Pedro Square.
“I thank you for your participation and also for your prayers, which have intensified during these last days. Thank you, thank you indeed!” the 86-year-old Argentine pontiff told the crowd, just one day after being released from the Roman hospital where he spent three days.
The health of the Latin American pontiff generated concern around the world after presenting on Wednesday breathing difficulties.
In his first public appearance for an official ceremony, Francisco looked pale and during his homily his voice was somewhat hoarse.
The pope entered the immense esplanade in the popemobile for the mass that marks the beginning of Holy Week and to which it was feared that he would not be able to attend for health reasons.
With a serious face and dressed in a white coat, he waved to the 60,000 people, according to official figures, who attended the ceremony under a blue and windy sky.
– “I’M STILL ALIVE” –
Standing at the central obelisk of the square, he first blessed thousands of olive and palm branches, a rite for believers in memory of the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem.
During the homily, he denounced the loneliness of the sick, among the various topics he addressed when speaking of abandoned people.
“There are so many abandoned, invisible, hidden Christians who are discarded with a white glove: unborn children, the elderly who have been left alone, the sick not visited, the handicapped ignored, young people who feel a great interior emptiness without anyone really hearing their cry for help. pain,” he stressed.
At the end of the ceremony, Francis rode around the square in his popemobile, this time smiling, to greet the faithful.
The Pope was discharged on Saturday to be able to preside over the ceremonies of the most significant week of the Catholic Church, which commemorates the death and resurrection of Christ according to the Gospel accounts.
The celebrations will continue until the Easter mass on Sunday, April 9.
As on other occasions and because he uses a wheelchair due to knee pain, Francisco will only preside over the ceremonies.
Francisco is determined to fulfill his work schedule and has wanted to show the world that he has recovered.
“I’m still alive,” he joked to the faithful and journalists, leaving the Gemelli hospital in Rome.
– AN EXHAUSTING WEEK –
One of his fellow cardinals, Leonardo Sandri, vice dean of the college of cardinals, who is about to turn 80, replaced him for mass from the altar.
With the mass this Sunday An exhausting week opens for the elderly pontiff, which includes the Mass “In Coena Domini” on Holy Thursday in the Casal del Marmo juvenile prison in Rome.
The pope’s spokesman, Matteo Bruni, announced that the mass in that institution will be celebrated “private form”, at an hour yet to be set.
When he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio used to visit prisons on Holy Thursday and practice there the rite of washing the feet of the poor, marginalized and homeless.
For the nocturnal Via Crucis on Good Friday in the Roman Colosseum, which is usually attended by faithful and tourists from all over the world, the agenda is not yet known.
If its favorable evolution is confirmed, It is likely that on Easter Sunday, on the occasion of the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to the city and the world, the Pope will appear from the central loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica to read the traditional message about the problems of the world.
