“We have begun Holy Week," Pope Francis said at the Angelus following the liturgy. "For the second time we will live it within the context of the pandemic,” he noted. "Last year, we were mostly shocked," Pope Francis said. "This year we are more sorely tried."

In his homily, Pope Francis focused on the sense of amazement Holy Week evokes, from the joy with which Our Lord is greeted on entering Jerusalem to the sorrow of his condemnation, passion, and crucifixion.

A leading theologian and member of the CDF – not to mention the principal architect of John Paul II’s Catechism of the Catholic Church – Cardinal Schönborn was speaking to Vienna’s archdiocesan newspaper, Der Sonntag.

Aidan O’Neill QC, who represented Canon White in the action, said, “[The blanket ban] has a fundamental chilling impact on worship and belief. It requires people in good conscience to choose between God and Caesar.” He called it “an extraordinary abuse of the state’s power,” and welcomed the judges' decision in the matter.

"Even in the pandemic," Bishop John Keenan of Paisley went on to say, "the Table has kept going with takeaways and deliveries."

The CCJP initiative to protect minority girls will include consultations with politicians and other decision makers at both state and national level, promoting community awareness about the problem, and providing legal help for victims.

As many as fifty people perished in violence on Sunday, believed to have been the worst single day of bloodshed since the unrest began.

March 15th is widely used as a date to mark the beginning of the war, which erupted in 2011 when demonstrations against the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in cities across the country.

Religious and cultural advocacy groups criticised the bill on those and similar grounds, as did journalists, police, and even the Law Society of Scotland. Several amendments made it into the version of the law that passed, which were designed to raise the threshold of prosecution.

A statement from the Press office of the Holy See said the Pope spent "a long time" with Mr. Kurdi, listening to him as he spoke -- through an interpreter -- of his pain at the loss of his family.

"You are part of [Iraq's] history," Pope Francis said, "faithfully bearing witness to God’s never-failing promises as you strive to build a new future."

"I come as a penitent," Pope Francis said, "asking forgiveness of heaven and my brothers and sisters for so much destruction and cruelty. I come as a pilgrim of peace in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace."