11.57am GMT: Thank you for following our live blog. That’s all from us for now. Please look out for this coming Friday’s Catholic Herald with full reports on Pope Francis’s election and installation. God Bless.
11.42am GMT: The Daily Telegraph has some amazing pictures of the Pope’s inauguration Mass this morning.
11.31am GMT: Damian Thompson asks if Pope Francis can save the Catholic Church?
“The new Pope reminds me of a charismatic parish priest: not the sort who turns the 11 am Mass into his personal game show, but one who delivers a short, pungent sermon that leaves you feeling uncomfortable about your selfishness as you leave Mass. He’s also the priest who knows everyone by name, who brightens your day with the warmth of his greeting, and whose parishioners worry about him because he’s still pushing himself as hard as ever, visiting hospitals in the middle of the night at the age of 76.”
11.25am GMT: John Allen tweets: “Said on CNN: Today’s inaugural Mass marks the end of the beginning for Pope Francis … now the story shifts to the hard work of governing.”
11.15am GMT: Pope Francis greets the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, daughter of a Lutheran pastor.
11.07am GMT: Pope Francis has just sent the second tweet of his pontificate: “Let us keep a place for Christ in our lives, let us care for one another and let us be loving custodians of creation.”
10.56am GMT: Latin lover Harry Mount is delighted by Pope Francis’s commitment to the ancient tongue:
“The Pope’s Inaugural Mass at St Peter’s this morning is a joy for Latin fans. Like his predecessor, he sounds pretty handy at the language, speaking the ancient words fluently and naturally.
“Even better, for us Latin obsessives, he’s chosen a motto for his coat of arms with not just one, but two, gerunds the bane of the Latin-learning schoolboy’s lessons. Gerunds, you’ll remember, are verbal nouns like “doing”, “laughing”, “singing”. The even trickier gerundive is a verbal adjective, meaning something like “needing to be done” there is no real English equivalent, although the English words, Amanda and agenda, are both gerundives.
“His new motto, “Miserando atque eligendo”, means “By having mercy and by choosing”. It derives from the Venerable Bede’s homily on St Matthew’s Gospel: “Jesus saw the tax collector and, by having mercy, chose him as an Apostle, saying to him, ‘Follow me.'”
“Both miserando and eligendo are gerunds; even better, miserando is the gerund of a deponent verb, miseror, “to have mercy on”. So Pope Francis I has incorporated a real brain-mangler the ablative of the gerund of a deponent verb in his motto. Good for Pope Francis I I look forward to many more years of delightfully complex Latin from him.”
10.49am GMT: The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, is waiting in line to be received by the Pope.
10.45am GMT: Pope Francis greets heads of state and representatives of different nations.
10.41am GMT: Pope Francis greets Cristina Kirchner, Argentina’s president, who seems slightly emotional.
10.38am GMT: The bells of St Peter’s Basillica peel following the inauguration Mass of Pope Francis.
10.27am GMT: Pope Francis will receive 132 representatives of nations and international organisations inside St Peter’s Basillica.
10.23am GMT: RAGreeneCNN tweets: “Rome’s chief rabbi Riccardo Di Segni in the crowd for Pope Francis Inauguration Mass. Looks politely into the sky during Communion.”
10.21am GMT: The choir sings the Salve Regina: “Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee to we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.”
10.19 GMT: Pope Francis imparts his final blessing. “The Lord Be With you. Blessed be the name of the Lord now and forever. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. May Almighty God bless you. The Father, Son and Holy spirit. Amen.”
10.13am GMT: Pope Francis looks extremely solemn at this moment.
10.05am GMT: The choir sings: “Hail true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, who truly suffered, sacrificed on the Cross for mankind, whose pierced side flowed with water and blood: be for us a foretaste (of heaven) in the trial of death. O merciful, O kind, O sweet Jesus, Son of Mary.”
10.00am GMT: “Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi.” Pope Francis receives the Body of Christ and the Precious Blood. He distributes communion to seminarians from the Pontifical North American College. The choir sings the antiphon: “Joseph, son of David do not be afraid to take Mary into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” Approximately 150,000 people are attending this Mass.
9.56am GMT: The Lord’s prayer is sung followed by the Sign of Peace.
9.53am GMT: Archbishop Sample tweets: “The Holy Father maintains his practice, which I have observed, of actually placing his hands on the chalice and bread at the epiclesis.”
9.50am GMT: The Mystery of Faith: “We proclaim your death O Lord and profess your resurrection until you come again.”
9.46am GMT: Pope Francis now asks God’s blessing on the gifts and the concelebrants say the words of consecration.
9.44am GMT: The choir sings the Sanctus.
9.31am GMT: Pope Francis says: “Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord God is our salvation: let us raise our prayer to him for the needs of Church and our world.” Bidding prayers begin. The congregation pray for the Pope, government leaders, the poor and the sick and God’s family.
9.28am GMT: Pope Francis implores Mary, St Joseph and St Francis of Asssis to invoke the Holy Spirit to guide him in his ministry as Pope.
9.27am GMT: Today we must see the light of hope and be men and women who bring hope to others. Let the shaft of light break through the heavy clouds. “The hope that we bring is set against the horizon of God which has opened up before us in Christ.”
9.25am GMT: Tenderness is compassion, love and genuine openess to others. We must not be afraid of goodness ad tenderness. Today we celebrate the beginning of the ministry of the new Bishop of Rome. Christ conferred power on Peter but what sort? Christ commands Peter: “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” “Let us never forget that authentic power is service and that the Pope too when exercising power must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the Cross.”
9.23am GMT: People in authority must be protectors of God’s plan inscribed in human nature. But to be protectors we must keep watch over ourselves. We defile our lives through hate and envy so we must guard our hearts and emotions, which seat good and evil intentions. We must not be afraid of goodness or tenderness.
9.20am GMT: The Pope says in St Joseph we learn how to respond to God’s call willingly. The vocation of being a protector means protecting all creation as St Francis of Assisi showed us. It means protection of children, the elderly and those in need. It means caring for our families. Husbands and wives first protect one another and their children, who later protect their parents. It means building friendships where we protect one another. In the end everything has been entrusted to our protection, Be protectors of God’s gifts.
9.19am GMT: God asks Joseph and David to be receptive to his plans.
09.17am GMT: Jospeh’s obedience points to the mission God entrusts to Joseph-one of protecting Mary and Jesus. This protection has been extended to the Church. Joseph does this with silence, humilty and total fidelity, even when he does not understand.
9.15am GMT: Pope Francis begins his homily. Thanks the Lord for being able to celebrate inauguration Mass on the feast of St Joseph-the name day of my “venerable predecessor.”
9.14am GMT: Pope Francis removes his mitre for the reading of the Gospel to signify that he is listening to the Word.
9.09am GMT: The Gospel according to St Matthew (1:16, 18-21,24a) is sang in Greek, rather than Latin, to represent the unity of the Church across the world. It is the passage describing St Joseph’s obedience to the Lord when the angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and urges him to take Mary into his home. “She will give birth to a son and you shall name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.”
9.06am GMT: The Gospel acclamation is sung: “Praise to you, O Chris, king of eternal glory.”
9.04am GMT: Barbie Latza Nadeau tweets: “Gust of wind sends colored vestments and cassocks flying, looks like a clothesline on a windy day from above. #Pope.”
9.00am GMT: Psalm 88 is now sung. Response to the Psalm: “His dynasty will last forever.”
8.59am GMT: A reading from the second book of Samuel. 7, 4-5, 12-14, 16. It is read by Sebastian Gomes from Salt and Light TV.
8.57am GMT: “For you alone are the Holy One. You alone are the Lord. You alone are the most high in Jesus Christ in the glory of God the Father. Amen.”
8.54am GMT: Rocco Palmo tweets: “Breaking tradition, Pope stands to receive cardinals making customary “obedience,” just as he did in Sistina on Election Night.”
8.50am GMT: It looks an extremely beautiful day in Rome. The choir sings the Kyrie Eleison as is usual at the beginning of the Mass. The Gloria is then sung.
8.48am GMT: Six cardinals now come forward, on behalf of the College of Cardinals, to show their respect and obedience to the new Pope.
8.43am GMT: Pope Francis receives the Fisherman’s Ring from the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
8.42am GMT: Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran addresses Pope Francis and places the pallium on Pope Francis.
8.36am GMT: Pope Francis kisses the altar and incenses the altar and crucifix reminding us of Christ’s centrality to the Mass. He then incenses the image of Madonna and child.
8.03am GMT: Pope Francis is currently making his debut in the Popemobile and greeting the crowd.
7.45am GMT: Welcome to our live blog of Pope Francis’s inauguration Mass.
The day’s events are expected to begin with Pope Francis touring around St Peter’s Square in the popemobile. The Mass itself will start at St Peter’s tomb at about 8.30am GMT. The piscatory ring and the pallium will be conferred on the new Pope. The Ring of the Fisherman, designed by the late Enrico Manfrini, is made of gold-plated silver. Pope Benedict’s ring, made of 1.23oz (35g) of pure gold, was defaced when he abdicated, in line with tradition.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will attend the Mass, becoming the first Patriarch of Constantinople to be present at a papal inauguration since the Great Schism in 1054.
The Church of England will be represented by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu. The Most Rev Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, is currently on a pilgrimage of prayer in England.
Politicians expected to attend today’s inauguration Mass include Italian president Giorgio Napolitano, outgoing premier Mario Monti, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, French prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and other European leaders, including EU president Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head José Manuel Barroso.
American vice president Joe Biden, a Catholic, arrived in
Rome on Sunday. Pope Francis, formerly Archbishop of Buenos Aires, met Argentinian president Cristina Kirchner on Monday.
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