{"id":50574,"date":"2025-09-14T21:56:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T21:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday"},"modified":"2025-09-14T22:11:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T22:11:02","slug":"catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Faithful Celebrate Pope Leo XIV&#8217;s 70th Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Eritrea. <\/strong><\/span><b>It was a festive scene in the Vatican\u2019s St Peter\u2019s Square on Sunday as the Catholic faithful gathered to celebrate the 70th birthday of Pope Leo XIV.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>When Leo appeared for his traditional noon blessing, he was greeted with banners, balloons and signs in English, Italian and Spanish wishing him a happy birthday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy dears, it seems you know today I have turned 70,\u201d Leo said to cheers. \u201cI thank the Lord, my parents, and I am grateful to all those who remembered me in their prayers,\u201d he went on to say.<\/p>\n<p>Groups of Peruvian believers, were out in force, a reminder of Leo\u2019s 20 years&#8217; missionary experience in Peru.<\/p>\n<p>Betti Ruiz Hernandez, a Catholic from Lima, Peru, but living in Italy was part of the crowd at the Vatican:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He needs so much joy, so many prayers to give him the strength that he has. But even more, he needs a lot of strength because he has to work so hard. We support him with our prayers and with our affection. We love him very much. We are here, especially today, on his birthday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday afternoon, Leo presided over an ecumenical prayer service in honour of 21st century martyrs.<\/p>\n<p>When he was elected last May at age 69, the former Robert Prevost was the youngest pope since 1978, when Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II at age 58.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Eritrea<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Eritrea. It was a festive scene in the Vatican\u2019s St Peter\u2019s Square on Sunday as the Catholic faithful gathered to celebrate the 70th birthday of Pope Leo XIV. When Leo appeared for his traditional noon blessing, he was greeted with banners, balloons and signs in English, Italian and Spanish wishing him a happy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":50573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[1113,233,3200,6890],"class_list":["post-50574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-culture-and-art","tag-catholicism","tag-eritrea","tag-peru","tag-pope-leo-xiv"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Catholic Faithful Celebrate Pope Leo XIV&#039;s 70th Birthday - Eritrea<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It was a festive scene in the Vatican\u2019s St Peter\u2019s Square on Sunday as the Catholic faithful gathered to celebrate th ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Catholic Faithful Celebrate Pope Leo XIV&#039;s 70th Birthday\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was a festive scene in the Vatican\u2019s St Peter\u2019s Square on Sunday as the Catholic faithful gathered to celebrate th ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Eritrea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-14T21:56:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-14T22:11:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/sites\/27\/2025\/09\/sm_1757871610.600465.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"538\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Catholic Faithful Celebrate Pope Leo XIV&#8217;s 70th Birthday\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-14T21:56:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-14T22:11:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday\"},\"wordCount\":251,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/sites\/27\/2025\/09\/sm_1757871610.600465.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Catholicism\",\"Eritrea\",\"Peru\",\"Pope Leo XIV\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"culture and art\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/catholic-faithful-celebrate-pope-leo-xivs-70th-birthday\",\"name\":\"Catholic Faithful Celebrate Pope Leo XIV's 70th Birthday - 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