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Heading into Easter celebrations on Sunday, Christian communities around the world celebrated Holy Week. This also marked the first Easter service led by Pope Francis.

Here, below, you’ll find a photo of a Holy Week procession taken in Zamora, Spain.

Pope Francis Holds First Easter Vigil Service In St. Peter’s Basilica

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis celebrated a trimmed back Easter Vigil service Saturday after having reached out to Muslims and women during a Holy Week in which he began to put his mark on the Catholic Church.

Francis processed into a darkened and silent St. Peter’s Basilica at the start of the service, in which the faithful recall the period between Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Pope presides over Easter Vigil service

Pope Francis is celebrating a trimmed back Easter Vigil service after having reached out to Muslims and women during a Holy Week in which he has begun to put his mark on the Catholic Church.

Francis processed into a darkened and silent St. Peter’s Basilica at the start of the Saturday service, which recalls the period between Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday. One of the most dramatic moments of the Easter Vigil service — when the pope would share the light of his candle with others until the entire basilica twinkled — was shortened this year as were some of the Old Testament readings.

The Vatican has said these provisions are in keeping with Francis’ aim to not have his Masses go on too long.

Pope presides over trimmed Easter Vigil service

Pope Francis is celebrating a trimmed back Easter Vigil service after having reached out to Muslims and women during a Holy Week in which he has begun to put his mark on the Catholic Church.

The Vatican has said these provisions are in keeping with Francis’ aim to not have his Masses go on too long.

Articles of Interest

Hugo Chavez Gains Religious Glow In Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela — Holding a Bible in her arms at the start of Holy Week, seamstress Maria Munoz waited patiently to visit the tomb of the man she considers another savior of humanity.

The 64-year-old said she had already turned her humble one-bedroom house into a shrine devoted to the late President Hugo Chavez, complete with busts, photos and coffee mugs bearing his image. Now, she said, her son-in-law was looking for a larger house to display six boxes’ worth of Chavez relics that her family has collected throughout his political career.

Chavez's legacy gains religious glow in Venezuela

Holding a Bible in her arms at the start of Holy Week, seamstress Maria Munoz waited patiently to visit the tomb of the man she considers another savior of humanity.

“He saved us from so many politicians who came before him,” Munoz said as tears welled in her eyes. “He saved us from everything.”

Chavez’s die-hard followers considered him a living legend on a par with independence-era hero Simon Bolivar well before his March 5 death from cancer. In the mere three weeks since, however, Chavez has ascended to divine status in this deeply Catholic country as the government and Chavistas build a religious mythology around him ahead of April 14 elections to pick a new leader.

Chavez’s hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, has led the way, repeatedly calling the late president “the redeemer Christ of the Americas” and describing Chavistas, including himself, as “apostles.”

Maduro went even further after Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis earlier this month. Maduro said Chavez had advised Jesus Christ in heaven that it was time for a South American pope.

That comes as Maduro’s government loops ads on state TV comparing Chavez to sainted heroes such as Bolivar and puts up countless banners around the capital emblazoned with Chavez’s image and the message “From his hands sprouts the rain of life.”

“President Chavez is in heaven,” Maduro told a March 16 rally in the poor Caracas neighborhood of Catia. “I don’t have any doubt that if any man who walked this earth did what was needed so that Christ the redeemer would give him a seat at his side, it was our redeemer liberator of the 21st century, the comandante Hugo Chavez.”

Chavistas such as Munoz have filled Venezuela with murals, posters and other artwork showing Chavez in holy poses surrounded by crosses, rosary beads and other religious symbolism.

One poster on sale in downtown Caracas depicts Chavez holding a shining gold cross in his hands …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Pope refers to "Muslim brothers" on Good Friday

Pope Francis reached out in friendship to “so many Muslim brothers and sisters” during a Good Friday procession dedicated to the suffering of Christians from terrorism, war and religious fanaticism in the Middle East.

The new pontiff, who has rankled traditionalists by rejecting many trappings of his office, mostly stuck to the traditional script during the nighttime Way of the Cross procession at Rome‘s Colosseum, one of the most dramatic rituals of Holy Week.

With torches lighting the way, the faithful carried a cross to different stations, where meditations and prayers were read out recalling the final hours of Jesus’ life and his crucifixion.

This year, the prayers were composed by young Lebanese, and many recalled the plight of minority Christians in the region, where wars have forced thousands to flee their homelands. The meditations called for an end to “violent fundamentalism,” terrorism and the “wars and violence which in our days devastate various countries in the Middle East.”

Francis, who became pope just over two weeks ago, chose, however, to stress Christians’ positive relations with Muslims in the region in his brief comments at the end of the ceremony.

Standing on a platform overlooking the procession route, Francis recalled Benedict XVI’s 2012 visit to Lebanon when “we saw the beauty and the strong bond of communion joining Christians together in that land and the friendship of our Muslim brothers and sisters and so many others.”

“That occasion was a sign to the Middle East and to the whole world, a sign of hope,” he said.

Friday’s outreach followed Francis’ eyebrow-raising gesture a day earlier, when he washed and kissed the feet of two women, one a Muslim, in the Holy Thursday ritual that commemorates Jesus’ washing of his apostles’ feet during the Last Supper before his crucifixion.

Breaking with tradition, Francis performed the ritual on 12 inmates at a juvenile detention center, rather than in Rome‘s grand St. John Lateran basilica, where in the past, 12 priests have been chosen to represent Jesus’ disciples.

Before he became pope, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio long cultivated warm relations with Muslim leaders in his native Argentina. In one of his first speeches as pope, he called for the church and the West in general to “intensify” relations with the Muslim world.

Pope prays at Good Friday rite recalling Mideast

March 29, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Pope Francis is sitting in silent prayer during this year’s Good Friday procession, which is re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion and recalling the wars and “violent fundamentalism” that are devastating the Middle East today.

The Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum is one of the most dramatic rituals of Holy Week, when Christians commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ.

The 76-year-old Francis chose not to walk the procession itself, but was sitting in prayer overlooking the route and was to deliver some remarks at the end.

This year, the meditations read out at each of the stations of the cross were composed by young Lebanese faithful. Many of the prayers referred to the plight of Christians in the Middle East and called for religious freedom and an end to the terrorism.

New pope opens Holy Week at Vatican on Palm Sunday

March 24, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Pope Francis is celebrating Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, which is filled with thousands of people waving olive branches and palm fronds.

The new pontiff arrived in an uncovered vehicle to start solemn Holy Week ceremonies, which lead up to Easter, Christianity’s most important day.

Francis wore bright red robes over a white cassock and presided over the Mass from an altar sheltered by a canopy on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Cardinals, many of them among the electors who on March 13 chose the Roman Catholic church’s first Latin American pope, sat in rows for the ceremony held under hazy skies on a breezy day.

'Huge heart': New pope preaches church's core values with compassion, say Argentinians

March 17, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

The last time Father Jorge Bergoglio was at the Vatican to be anointed with a new title, the man who would become Pope Francis reveled in the anonymity he will never again know.

It was Feb. 21, 2001, and the Argentinian priest and his aide Guillermo Marcó were headed from their quarters to the ceremony at which Bergoglio would be named a Cardinal. When Marcó seemed concerned that Bergoglio’s bright red robe made them conspicuous, the priest known for his lack of pretense shrugged it off.

“Don’t worry about it,” Marcó recalled the future pontiff saying as they ducked into a coffee shop. “In Rome you could walk with a banana on your head and no one would say anything.”

As Pope Francis, the unassuming cleric who rode the subway in Buenos Aires and rejected the Cardinal’s lavish suburban quarters will draw crowds wherever he goes. Where he once washed the feet of AIDS sufferers, shared tea and pastries with destitute war veterans and traveled to the city’s slums to comfort the poor and forgotten, Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, must convey his common touch to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics from afar.

Those who served and worshipped with Bergoglio in Argentina speak lovingly of a warm and humble man whose fierce devotion to the church’s traditional values shines through in deeds more than words. They expect Pope Francis‘ gentle, yet uncompromising nature to be a powerful force in the promotion of the faith’s long-held tenets.

Father Gustavo Irrazábal, who has known Bergoglio since 1992, describes him as modest, austere and deeply spiritual. The new pope embraces the church’s conservative social values, but places great emphasis on compassion, and tolerance and understanding of other faiths, according to him.

“He is a much loved figure,” said Irrazábal. “He is also very open to inter-religious dialogues, and has strong ties with Jewish and Islamic figures here in Argentina.”

Bergoglio has been a fixture in the places in Buenos Aires where he felt the people needed him – hospitals, hospices and ghettos, washing the feet of AIDS victims and drug addicts during Holy Week.

Bergoglio’s sympathy for the poor gained him popularity across every strata of society. Opposite Buenos Aires‘ Municipal Cathedral is the permanent protest camp of a group of Falklands – Malvinas war veterans shunned and marginalized by society. To them, Bergoglio is a hero.

“The first day I met him was four years ago when he brought us a dozen pastries,” said group member Jorge Zamudio. “Since then, he has always come to drink mate (Argentine tea) with us.

“We called him today to congratulate him, and he took the time to talk to us, even though he must have the whole world calling him,” Zamudio said. “He has a huge heart.”

Since Pope Francis‘ election, a feeling of excitement has run through the streets of Buenos Aires. As news spread that the new Pope would be a Latin American, cars honked their horns at each other in celebration – a ritual usually reserved for when Argentina wins a soccer match – …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Articles of Interest

Vatican Papal Conclave 2013: Pope Vote Preparations Begin In Earnest

March 4, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

VATICAN CITY, March 4 (Reuters) – Roman Catholic cardinals filed into the Vatican on Monday for preliminary meetings to sketch an identikit for the next pope and ponder who among them might be best to lead a church beset by crises.
They arrived by private car, taxi and minibus at the gates of the Vatican for gatherings known as general congregations, closed-door meetings in which they will get to know each other and decide when to start a conclave to choose a man to lead the 1.2 billion member Church.
The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected next week and officially installed several days later so he can preside over the Holy Week ceremonies starting with Palm Sunday on March 24 and culminating in Easter the following Sunday.
Pope Benedict left the Church in a state of shock when he announced last month that he would be the first pontiff in 600 years to resign instead of ruling for life. He formally stepped down on Thursday, leaving the papacy vacant.
High on the agenda at the general congregations will be the daunting challenges that will face the next pontiff, including the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the Church and last year’s “Vatileaks” scandal which exposed corruption and rivalries in the Vatican’s bureaucracy.
“We need a man of governance, by that I mean a man who is able with the people he chooses to help him in an intimate way to govern the Church,” Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the former Archbishop of Westminster in London, told BBC radio.
“Among the things we will be talking about out here are precisely the need in looking for a new pope for these failings that have happened again to be treated, to be faced strongly.”
The cardinals, numbering about 150, are expected to hold one or two meetings a day. The Vatican seems keen to have only a week of preliminary talks so the 115 “cardinal electors” aged under 80 can enter the Sistine Chapel for the conclave next week. The exact date for its start has not been decided.
“We have meetings …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Pope changes conclave rules, allows earlier start

February 25, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Pope Benedict XVI has changed the rules of the conclave that will elect his successor, allowing cardinals to move up the start date if all of them arrive in Rome before the usual 15-day transition between pontificates.

Benedict signed a legal document, issued Monday, with some line-by-line changes to the 1996 Vatican law governing the election of a new pope. It is one of his last acts as pope before resigning Thursday.

The date of the conclave’s start is important because Holy Week begins March 24, with Easter Sunday March 31. In order to have a new pope in place for the church’s most solemn liturgical period, he would need to be installed by Sunday, March 17 — a tight timeframe if a conclave were to start March 15.