Photos featured this week include the Palms and Flowers Festival in Panchimalco, El Salvador, Easter celebration in Ukraine and the newly restored Santo Tomás de Villanueva campus chapel in Havana, Cuba.
Thousands of Maronite Catholics shut down the streets of the Sydney suburb of Punchbowl May 8, 2024, to welcome relics of Lebanon’s most well-known saint to their new permanent home in Australia. Queues of faithful braced the rain along the avenue where St. Charbel’s Church and Monastery stands, spilling over onto neighboring streets as more than 70 white-clad pallbearers carried a 242-pound replica of St. Charbel’s tomb atop a bed of 2,500 roses. (OSV News photo/Giovanni Portelli, courtesy St. Charbel’s parish and Monastery Sydney)
Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican nuncio to the United States, greets Bishop James T. Ruggieri during his ordination and installation Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Maine, May 7, 2024. Bishop Ruggieri succeeds Bishop Robert P. Deeley, who had headed the statewide Portland Diocese nearly 10 years when the pope accepted his resignation Feb. 13 at age 77 and named his successor. (OSV News photo/McKenney Photography, courtesy of Diocese of Portland)
Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García of Havana concelebrates a Mass of thanksgiving April 24, 2024, in the newly restored Santo Tomás de Villanueva campus chapel in Havana. Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski concelebrated the Mass. (OSV News photo/courtesy Catholic Extension Society)
Palestinian children gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid shortages of aid supplies, after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of Rafah, as the ongoing Israel-Hamas war continues, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 8, 2024. (OSV News photo/Hatem Khaled, Reuters)
Pope Francis prays before a statue of Our Lady of Luján during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican May 8, 2024, the feast day of Our Lady of Luján. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
Priests sprinkle holy water on worshippers during a ceremony to bless Easter cakes and eggs before a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Easter Vigil service in the town of Pustomyty, Ukraine, May 4, 2024. Easter was celebrated May 5 according to the Julian calendar but after 2025, all Ukrainian Greek Catholic parishes will follow the Gregorian liturgical calendar. (OSV News photo/Gleb Garanich, Reuters)
A woman holds flowers as Catholics take part in a procession during the celebration of the Palms and Flowers Festival in Panchimalco, El Salvador, May 5, 2024. (OSV News photo/Jose Cabezas, Reuters)
Author: OSV News
OSV News is a national and international wire service reporting on Catholic issues and issues that affect Catholics.
