Photos of the Week: Pope Francis’ health; War anniversary
By Kit Doyle · February 25, 2025
(RNS) — Each week RNS presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s photo gallery includes Pope Francis' health issues, the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and more.
A young, novice monk holds up traditional instruments played by fellow monks during Gyalpo Losar, the Sherpa community's New Year celebration, at Shechen Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
People leave notes and offer prayers for Pope Francis under a statue of St. John Paul II, center, outside Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (RNS photo/Claire Giangravé)
Faithful pray for Pope Francis' health during a Mass in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
People attend a rosary prayer service held for the health of Pope Francis in St Peter's Square at the Vatican, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
People pray for Pope Francis outside Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (RNS photo/Claire Giangravé)
Deacons take part in a Mass for their jubilee in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, that was supposed to be presided over by Pope Francis who was admitted over a week earlier at Rome's Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
A devotee puts turmeric paste on the steps of the Lingamanthula Swamy Temple during a Hindu pilgrimage called the Peddagattu Jatara, in Suryapet, Telangana state, India, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025. (AP Photo /Mahesh Kumar A.)
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, right, speaks with attendees during the annual Black History Month event, Lift Every Voice, presented by Women in Worship of Lexington at Consolidated Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky., Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
American-Jewish visitors hold Torah scrolls at a synagogue in the old city of Damascus, Feb. 18, 2025. A Syrian-American Jewish family returned for the first time since emigrating from Syria to the United States more than three decades ago, as part of a delegation organized by the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, in the wake of the fall of the government of former President Bashar Assad. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)
Metropolitan Epifaniy, head of Ukraine's Orthodox Church, presides over a service attended by servicemen on the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko)
People attend an interfaith prayer service to mark the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Band musicians perform during a pre-carnival celebration in Oruro, Bolivia, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Thirty-three ministers of the Christian Reformed Church in North America are ordained in the Reformed Church in America, Feb. 18, 2025, during a ceremony at The Community Church in Ada, Mich. (Photo courtesy of James Early)
Archival Photos
President Dwight Eisenhower, center, meets with a group of Black clergymen who called on him to back up the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing segregation in schools, in Washington, D.C., in 1955. The ministers represented 8,000,000 members of churches affiliated with the National Fraternal Council of Churches. They asked the President to insist that no Federal aid be given to schools, hospitals, public housing projects, or recreation areas which practice racial discrimination. (RNS archive photo by Seth H. Muse. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society)
The Most Rev. Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, left, presents the Cross of St. Augustine to the Rev. Dr. M. Moran Weston, rector of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, during a visit to the Harlem congregation in 1981 in New York City. The Archbishop spoke during a service marking the conclusion of the church’s 170th year and called the mostly Black parish “a model of community involvement.” (RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.)
Some 150 delegates representing nearly one million Lutherans in Africa attended the first All-Africa Lutheran Conference Marangu, Tanganyika, present-day Tanzania, in 1955. The meeting, sponsored by the Lutheran World Federation, aimed to promote a stronger Indigenous church. Shown in front row are some of the clergymen who played a leading role at the conference. (RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society)
