VENICE
Pope Francis presided over mass in St. Mark’s Square in Venice yesterday while warning of environmental damage and over-tourism, in a closely watched visit marking the ageing pontiff’s first outside Rome since last year.
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Fragile health has prevented the 87-year-old leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics from travelling in recent months, his last trip being a visit to the French city of Marseille in September.
But under sunny skies yesterday, the pope appeared in high spirits as he addressed more than 10,000 faithful seated in the vast St. Mark’s Square, following an earlier visit to a women’s prison, and an address to young Venetians.
Citing the “enchanting beauty” of Venice, Francis listed the many dangers facing it, climate change, mass tourism and “frayed social relations, individualism and loneliness.”
“Venice is one with the waters upon which it sits. Without the care and safeguarding of this natural environment, it might…