Pope Francis, marking Palm Sunday in a packed St. Peter's Square, ignored his prepared homily and spoke entirely off-the-cuff in a remarkable departure from practice. Later, he continued to stray from the script by hopping off his popemobile to pose for "selfies" with young people and also sipping tea passed to him from the crowd. In his homily, Francis called on people, himself included, to look into their own hearts to see how they are living their lives. He sounded tired, frequently pausing to catch his breath, as he spoke for about 15 minutes in his homily during Palm Sunday Mass, which solemnly opens Holy Week for the Roman Catholic Church.
But he seemed to regain his wind after the 2 ½ hour ceremony. He shed his red vestments atop his plain white cassock, chatted amiably with cardinals dressed more formally than he at that point. Then he posed for "selfies" with young people from Rio de Janeiro who had carried a large cross in the square. He had barely climbed aboard his open-topped popemobile when he spotted Polish youths. They, too, were clamoring for a "selfie" with a pope, and he hopped off, not even waiting for the vehicle to fully stop, to oblige them. In another moment in the pope's long tour of the square, the Vatican's security chief poured herbal mate tea from a thermos, thrust toward the pontiff by someone in the crowd, into a mate cup, also held out by an admirer, and passed the cup to Francis for a sip. (More Pope Francis stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
