Pope Francis arrives to rejoice the Palm Sunday’s mass in St. Peter’s Sq. at The Vatican Sunday, April 2, 2023 a day after being discharged from the Agostino Gemelli College Hospital in Rome, the place he has been handled for bronchitis, The Vatican stated.

Andrew Medichini/AP

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Andrew Medichini/AP

Pope Francis arrives to rejoice the Palm Sunday’s mass in St. Peter’s Sq. at The Vatican Sunday, April 2, 2023 a day after being discharged from the Agostino Gemelli College Hospital in Rome, the place he has been handled for bronchitis, The Vatican stated.

Andrew Medichini/AP

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Bundled in an extended, white coat and battling a hoarse voice, Pope Francis presided over Mass in St. Peter’s Sq. earlier than tens of hundreds of trustworthy on Palm Sunday, a day after he left a Rome hospital the place he was handled for bronchitis.

The solar broke via the clouds in the course of the Mass, one of many longest companies on the Church’s calendar, as Francis, purple vestments positioned over his coat, sat in a chair underneath a cover erected within the sq..

He took his place there after standing and clutching a braided palm department in a popemobile that drove on the tail finish of an extended, solemn procession of cardinals, different prelates and rank-and-file Catholics. Every participant carried palm fronds or olive tree branches.

Francis, 86, acquired antibiotics administered intravenously throughout his three-day keep. He final earlier look in St. Peter’s Sq. noticed him conduct his his common Wednesday public viewers. He was taken to Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic that very same day after feeling ailing.

His voice sounded robust as he opened the Mass, however shortly turned strained. Regardless of the hoarseness, Francis learn a 15-minute-long homily, often including off-the-cuff remarks for emphasis or gesturing with a hand.

Pope Francis arrives on the altar to rejoice the Palm Sunday’s mass in St. Peter’s Sq. at The Vatican Sunday, April 2, 2023 a day after being discharged from the Agostino Gemelli College Hospital in Rome, the place he has been handled for bronchitis, The Vatican stated.

Andrew Medichini/AP

conceal caption

toggle caption

Andrew Medichini/AP

Pope Francis arrives on the altar to rejoice the Palm Sunday’s mass in St. Peter’s Sq. at The Vatican Sunday, April 2, 2023 a day after being discharged from the Agostino Gemelli College Hospital in Rome, the place he has been handled for bronchitis, The Vatican stated.

Andrew Medichini/AP

The homily centered on moments when folks really feel “excessive ache, love that fails, or is rejected or betrayed.” Francis cited “kids who’re rejected or aborted,” in addition to damaged marriages, “types of social exclusion, injustice and oppression, (and) the solitude of illness.”

Deviating from his ready speech, Francis spoke a couple of homeless German man who lately died, “alone, deserted,” underneath the colonnade circling St. Peter’s Sq., the place homeless individuals usually sleep.

“I, too, want Jesus to caress me,” Francis stated.

Concern over abandonment threaded via his homily. “Complete peoples are exploited and deserted; the poor dwell on our streets and we glance the opposite manner; migrants are now not faces however numbers; prisoners are disowned, folks written off as issues,” Francis stated.

Palm Sunday marks Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem within the time main as much as his crucifixion, which Christians observe on Good Friday.

Palm Sunday opened a heavy schedule of Holy Week appointments for the pontiff, together with a Holy Thursday Mass at a juvenile jail in Rome. Holy Week culminates on April 9 with Easter Sunday Mass, which recollects the Christian perception in Jesus’ resurrection.