{"id":24177,"date":"2016-03-27T01:18:49","date_gmt":"2016-03-27T01:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/pope-delivers-easter-message-of-hope-after-grim\/"},"modified":"2016-03-27T01:18:35","modified_gmt":"2016-03-27T01:18:35","slug":"pope-delivers-easter-message-of-hope-after-grim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/pope-delivers-easter-message-of-hope-after-grim\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope delivers Easter message of hope after grim week of terror"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Pope Francis preached an Easter message of hope after a grim week in Europe, calling on Christians not to let fear and pessimism &#8220;imprison&#8221; them.}<\/p>\n<p>Speaking amid tight security at the Vatican, the Pope said: &#8220;Let us not allow darkness and fear to distract us and control our hearts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His message followed a condemnation on Friday of the Brussels terror attacks.<br \/>\nIslamist violence is expected to be a prominent theme of his traditional &#8220;Urbi et Orbi&#8221; Easter message.<\/p>\n<p>Many pilgrims cancelled their planned trips to Rome in the wake of the violence in Brussels, but St Peter&#8217;s Basilica in the Vatican was packed when Pope Francis celebrated mass on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The Pontiff entered a darkened basilica with just a single candle guiding him. As he reached the altar, the basilica&#8217;s floodlights came on to symbolise the resurrection of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p>Delivering his homily, Francis said: &#8220;Today is the celebration of our hope. It is so necessary today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The lengthy vigil service also included a papal baptism for 12 adults hailing from China, South Korea and other countries around the world.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday morning, Francis will preside over Easter Mass and offer his annual Easter blessing.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, he denounced the &#8220;terrorist acts committed by followers of some religions which profane the name of God and which use the holy name to justify their unprecedented violence&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Vatican officials distributed sleeping bags to 100 homeless people.<\/p>\n<p>The police presence in the streets around the Vatican has been stepped up this year, as more pilgrims than usual are expected after Francis declared a jubilee year for the Catholic Church, calling it a &#8220;Holy Year of Mercy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11190 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_88959080_88959076.jpg\" alt=\"A vigil service included a papal baptism for 12 adults hailing from China, South Korea and other countries around the world.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Pope Francis preached an Easter message of hope after a grim week in Europe, calling on Christians not to let fear and pessimism &#8220;imprison&#8221; them.} Speaking amid tight security at the Vatican, the Pope said: &#8220;Let us not allow darkness and fear to distract us and control our hearts.&#8221; His message followed a condemnation on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[101],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","tag-internationl","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24177"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24177"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}