The pope's voice sounded strong as he opened the Mass, but quickly turned strained.
as Francis, red vestments placed over his coat, sat in a chair under a canopy erected in the square.
The homily focused on moments when people feel "extreme pain, love that fails, or is rejected or betrayed.'' Francis cited "children who are rejected or aborted," as well as broken marriages, "forms of social exclusion, injustice and oppression, the solitude of sickness." The pope also referred to "young people who feel a great emptiness inside without anyone really listening to their cry of pain," and who "find no other path but that of suicide."
At the end of Mass, Francis greeted the Romans, tourists and pilgrims who had flocked to the square, noting that many in the crowd of 60,000 had come from afar.
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