Pope hosts lunch for Rome’s poor and homeless

Pope Francis hosted a lunch for 1,300 poor and homeless people on Sunday, the day the Roman Catholic Church marks the World Day of the Poor.

Francis, who has been using a wheelchair and cane because of a knee ailment, sat with them in the Vatican’s large audience hall, where they were served by volunteer waiters and waitresses.

Earlier, in the homily of a Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, where many of them sat in the front rows, Francis called on people who are more fortunate “to break through that inner deafness which prevents us from hearing the stifled cry of pain of the frailest” in society.