Image: Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, 28 March 2021. ©Vatican Media
Pope Francis led the liturgy inside Saint Peter’s Basilica this Palm Sunday – for the second year in a row, owing to coronavirus emergency restrictions – with a limited congregation gathered before the altar of the chair behind the high altar. 120 places were reserved for the faithful, and some thirty for cardinals.
In his Angelus remarks -- delivered from the basilica -- Pope Francis noted that this is the second year in a row we are marking Holy Week under pandemic conditions. “Last year, we were mostly shocked,” Pope Francis said. “This year we are more sorely tried.” At the end of his Angelus remarks, Pope Francis also offered prayers for Indonesia, where suicide bombers wounded more than a dozen people in a Palm Sunday attack on a Catholic cathedral.
