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March 27, 2020

This evening Catholics from all over the world are invited to unite spiritually, through the media, at the hour of prayer that, on the occasion of the coronavirus pandemic, the Pope will preside starting at 6 pm in the square of a Piazza San Pietro deserted and which will end with an extraordinary blessing "urbi et orbi".

Near the central gate of the Vatican Basilica will be placed the image of the Salus Populi Romani, the Byzantine icon of the Madonna "salvation of the Roman people" preserved in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and invoked by the inhabitants to protect them from the dramas that have marked history of the Eternal City, and the 15th century wooden crucifix preserved in San Marcello al Corso, "miraculously" escaped a fire that destroyed the church in 1519 and then carried in procession in 1522 to invoke the end of a plague that struck Rome.

Precisely to invoke the end of the epidemic, the bishop of Rome prayed before both of these two sacred objects during a sort of "pilgrimage" which he made, on March 15, along, partly on foot, the streets of the Eternal City.

It was the Pope himself who announced the appointment this evening, at the Sunday Angelus on March 22: "We will listen to the Word of God, we will raise our supplication, we will adore the Blessed Sacrament, with which at the end I will give the Urbi et blessing and Orbi, to whom the possibility of receiving the plenary indulgence will be attached ".

After listening to the Word of God, Pope Francis will give a meditation. The Blessed Sacrament will be exhibited on the altar located in the atrium of the Vatican Basilica and after the supplication, the rite of the Eucharistic blessing "Urbi et Orbi" will follow, to the city and the world, usually given by the Pope every Easter and every Christmas. Then, Cardinal Angelo Comastri, Archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica, will pronounce the formula for the proclamation of indulgence.