Francis extols today’s Christian martyrs at start of Holy Week

Pope Francis paid tribute to persecuted Christians, whom he called “the martyrs of our time”, as he presided over a Palm Sunday Mass for thousands of pilgrims.

Francis reminded the crowd of 70,000 who gathered waving palms and olive branches of “our brothers and sisters who are persecuted because they are Christians – the martyrs of our own time. There are many of them! They refuse to deny Jesus and they endure insult and injury with dignity. They follow him on his way.”

Thousands of Christians have been driven from their homes, killed or enslaved by militant Islamists in Syria and Iraq. The terrorists have also made alarming inroads into Libya, most notoriously beheading 21 Coptic Christians with a brutality that shocked the world.

According to the International Society for Human Rights, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians. The Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in the United States estimated last year that 100,000 Christians die every year because of their faith – 11 every hour.

Pope Francis urged people to draw strength and be inspired by the humiliation of the modern-day martyrs. Humility and humiliation, he said, is “God’s way and the way of Christians”. Even though it “constantly amazes and disturbs us”, he said, “we will never get used to a humble God.”

Drawing on the gospel for the day, Pope Francis reminded the crowd of the contempt shown towards Jesus, before his Crucifixion, as he was “arrested, abandoned by his disciples, mocked, condemned to death, beaten and insulted”.

He added: “This week, Holy Week, which leads us to Easter, we will take this path of Jesus’ own humiliation. Only in this way will this week be holy for us, too.”

In a solemn service Francis also remembered the 150 people who died in the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps (see pages 4-7). The blessing of palms and the Mass in St Peter’s Square marked the start of Holy Week.

On Holy Thursday the Pope was to celebrate the Chrism Mass in St Peter’s with the cardinals, bishops and priests of Rome, and in the evening he was to visit inmates of Rome’s Rebibbia prison and wash their feet at the Mass of the Last Supper.

On Good Friday, the Pope was to preside over an early evening reading of the Passion in St Peter’s Basilica and a night-time celebration of the Way of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum.

Today, Holy Saturday, Pope Francis is to lead the night-time celebration of the Easter Vigil in St Peter’s Basilica and tomorrow, Easter Sunday, he will celebrate Mass in St Peter’s Square and then give the traditional Urbi et Orbi (“To the city and the world”) message from the loggia of the basilica.