The Pope made a blessing over an empty St Peter’s Square as Italy remained in lockdown over coronavirus.
Pope Francis for the second Sunday delivered his noon remarks from inside the Apostolic Library at the Vatican.
He praised people who might risk contagion to help the poor and homeless.
The Vatican later confirmed Holy Week ceremonies would take place without the ‘physical presence of the faithful.’
It said until April 12, when Easter Sunday is celebrated this year, all the general audiences on Wednesday as well as Francis’s weekly Sunday noon prayer will be streamed online.
Among popular Holy Week ceremonies is the Good Friday Way of the Cross torchlit procession at Rome’s Colosseum.
Holy Week ceremonies usually draw tens of thousands of people to Rome but, with Italy being the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak, tourism in the country has vanished.
