Pope Francis Ireland visit: More than 80,000 gather for Festival of Families as pontiff addresses masses

Patrick Grafton-Green26 August 2018

More than 80,000 people gathered in Dublin's Croke Park stadium on Saturday evening as the Pope addressed the masses for the Festival of Families.

The two-hour-long event was held to mark the end of the World Meeting of Families 2018, and came after Pope Francis met victims of church abuse in the first papal visit to Ireland since 1979.

The evening of celebration included Irish dancing, classical music and children's choirs. Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli delivered a powerful rendition of Ave Maria while country stars Daniel O'Donnell and Nathan Carter also thrilled the crowd.

The pontiff earlier received an enthusiastic welcome as he arrived in the stadium and then did a lap of the pitch floor in a golf buggy, closely flanked by his security team.

Pope Francis arriving to attend the Festival of Families at Croke Park
AFP/Getty Images

Members of the audience rose to their feet and some even stood on their chairs for a better look as he passed giving smiles and waves.

The selection of themes throughout the night reflected the priorities in the ministry of Pope Francis, including homelessness, migrants and refugees and care for our common home.

A huge crowd attends The Festival of Families event at Croke Park
Getty Images

Francis heard five testimonies by families from Ireland, Canada, India, Iraq, and Africa about the importance of family in the modern age.

He addressed the crowd at the end of the event, discussing the importance of family in the age of social media.

Pope Francis addresses the gathering during the Festival of Families
AFP/Getty Images

The Pope said social media can serve to build a network of friendships and solidarity, but he said it should only be used in moderation.

He said it was important that social media "never becomes a threat to the real life relationships by imprisoning us in a virtual reality and isolating us from the very real relationships that challenge us to grow".

A general view of Croke Park during the visit of Pope Francis
REUTERS

Earlier in the day, he met with victims of church abuse and mistreatment in Ireland after expressing pain and shame over failures to tackle the scandals.

A 90-minute private meeting with eight survivors came hours after Francis acknowledged that Irish people had a right to be outraged by the church's response to the crimes.

On the first day of his historic visit to Ireland, he also prayed for all victims of clerical sex abuse.

With the reverberations of a litany of clerical sex crimes casting a shadow over the historic visit, The Pope acknowledged the gravity of what had happened.

"With regard to the most vulnerable, I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the church charged with responsibility for their protection and education," he said.

"The failure of ecclesiastical authorities - bishops, religious superiors, priests and others - adequately to address these repellent crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.

"I myself share those sentiments."

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar had earlier urged the Pope to "listen to the victims" in his own address.

While thousands lined the streets of the capital to catch a glimpse of Francis passing in his famous Popemobile on Saturday afternoon, the crowds were certainly not on the scale witnessed when John Paul II made a similar trip. And among the well-wishers lining Dublin's streets there were also protesters, who vented their anger at the pontiff as he drove by.

On Sunday, the Pope will fly west to County Mayo, where he will follow in the footsteps of John Paul II and take part in a religious service at a holy shrine in Knock.

He will then return to Dublin for the closing centrepiece of the World Meeting of Families event – an outdoor Mass in front of an expected congregation of half a million people in Phoenix Park.

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