(Vatican Radio ) It poured with rain on Sunday morning in a packed Saint Peter’s Square as Pope Francis presided over a colourful celebration in the context of the ‘Year of Faith’: Holy Mass with Confraternities. And the Confraternities came in thousands spilling over beyond the Square, donning their traditional robes and bearing their great crucifixes which they lined up against the walls of the colonnades. Mostly from European countries: Italy, Spain, Malta, Portugal and Ireland, some from even further afar.
And when the Pope greeted them he thanked them for their courage in braving the rain. In this Square he insisted, "I see a great variety, first of umbrellas, and then of colours and signs"…
“Popular piety”, he told them, “is a journey which leads to what is essential, if it is live ...»