A memorial mass to honor the life and ministry of Pope Francis will be held Friday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced Tuesday.
The special service will be held at 12:10 p.m. by Archbishop José H. Gomez, who will be joined by Auxiliary bishops and clergy of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Friday’s mass will be in anticipation of Pope Francis’ funeral, which is scheduled for Saturday at St. Peter’s Square at 10 a.m. local time (1 a.m. PT). The Holy Father will then be laid to rest at the Basilica of Santa Maggiore in Rome.
Pope Francis died on Monday evening at the age of 88 of a stroke and heart failure, the Vatican said. The fragile pope made his last appearance on Sunday at St. Peter’s, where he blessed the crowds outside St. Peter’s Square.
Pope Francis appointed nine auxiliary bishops to assist Gomez. As of 2005, the Roman Catholic population with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which includes Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, was 4.3 million. There are 288 parishes located in 120 cities in the Archdiocese.
“In this time of mourning, my prayer is that all of us in the Church will honor Pope Francis’ legacy by remembering that he called us to urgent tasks that are still not finished:
We must continue our work of serving the poor, the migrant, and all who are forgotten on society’s “peripheries.”
We must persevere in caring for our common home, which is the earth, and in building a world that respects the sanctity and dignity of all human life and the Creator’s desire that we live in peace and fraternity as one human family,” said Bishop Gomez in a statement released Monday.
Friday’s mass will be livestreamed on @LaCatholics and OLACathedral Facebook channels.
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