Watch again as Pope Francis leads New Year’s Day Mass from the Vatican on Monday (1 January).
After mass the Pope will go to Peter’s Balcony to deliver his papal blessing to the watchful crowd at St Peter’s Square, weather permitting. In 2020 the pinnacle of the Catholic Church was forced to provide the Angelus blessing from the papal library attributable to poor weather.
Last yr was a solemn event: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died on New Year’s Eve on the age of 95, causing 1000’s of Catholics to assemble in Saint Peter’s Square to recollect the previous leader of the Church.
Pope Francis offered prayers for the “tormented Ukrainian people and the Palestinian and Israeli populations” during his traditional Sunday blessing on New Year’s Eve.
Giving his blessing from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square on the Vatican, the pope recalled 2023 as a yr marked by wartime suffering.
