Pope baptizes 16 babies in Sistine Chapel after year's break
ABC News
Pope Francis has baptized 16 babies in the Sistine Chapel, resuming a decades-old Vatican tradition after the ceremony wasn't held last year due to the pandemic
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis baptized 16 babies in the splendor of the Sistine Chapel on Sunday, resuming a decades-old Vatican tradition which had been interrupted last year by the pandemic.
Francis told the parents of the nine girls and seven boys whom he formally ushered into the Catholic church through baptism that their duty was to “preserve the Christian identity” of their children.
As he has in the past, Francis immediately sought to put the parents at ease, telling them to make sure their babies, wearing lacy, frilly outfits and wrapped in soft wool blankets, didn’t become too warm during the long ceremony in the chapel where popes are elected by cardinals in secret conclaves. He also told mothers to feel free to nurse their babies if they were hungry in the chapel with its ceiling frescoed by Michelangelo and “before the Lord without any problem.”
“Please, they are the protagonists” of the ceremony, Francis said, referring to the babies.
