Pope Francis on Saturday urged Catholics to not remain paralyzed in the face of the injustices around them as he baptized eight adults, including a Nigerian beggar who became a hero in Italy for having disarmed a thief with his bare hands. Tens of thousands of faithful underwent heavy security checks to enter St Peter’s Square to participate in Easter Sunday Mass. Ogah was begging for change outside a supermarket in a Rome neighborhood where many migrants live last September when he

 stopped a 37-year-old Italian who had just held up the store with a cleaver and was getting away with about 400 euros, according to the Catholic television station TV2000. VATICAN CITY (CBSNEWS/AP) – On Christianity’s most joyful day, Pope Francis in his Easter Sunday message called for peace in a world marked by war and conflict, “beginning with the beloved and long-suffering land of Syria,” and extending to the entire Middle East, the Korean peninsula and parts of Africa affected by “hunger, endemic conflicts and terrorism.”

Francis reflected on the power of Christianity’s core belief — that Jesus rose from the dead following crucifixion — in his formal “Urbi et Orbi” Easter message delivered from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to a packed square below.
Pope Francis uses his Easter address to call for peace between the peoples of Israel and Palestine in response to the clashes.