Pope Benedict XVI prayed for struggling families and the jobless on Monday as he paid homage to a statue of the Virgin Mary in Rome's famed Piazza di Spagna.About 20,000 Romans and tourists gathered in the picturesque square to see the 81-year-old pontiff leading the traditional afternoon ceremony marking the Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception.
He arrived in an open-top car, wearing red robes trimmed with white fur, and was greeted by Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno and Cardinal Agostino Vallini, his 'vicar', or stand-in, for the Rome diocese.
As the light faded, Benedict urged Christians, as the financial crisis worsens, to ''show more solidarity and fill ever-widening social gaps''.
Addressing the statue of the Madonna, he called for aid for ''households who are struggling to make ends meet and people who can't find jobs or have lost their jobs''.
He also urged more efforts to help elderly people living alone, the sick and immigrants who ''find it hard to integrate''.
Invoking ''a greater sense of the common good,'' the pope also said people should show greater respect for public property and especially the city of Rome, ''a patrimony for all''. The tradition of the papal pilgrimage to Piazza di Spagna was revived by Benedict's predecessor John Paul II at the start of his pontificate.
The statue and column were erected there by Pope Pius IX in 1856 after he declared the dogma of the 'immaculate conception', meaning that Jesus' mother was conceived without the stain of original sin.
It is traditional for Catholics to leave floral tributes to the Virgin Mary at the foot of the column holding her statue.
Early on Monday morning, firemen scaled the 30-metre column to leave the first wreathe on the statue.
The pope added a basket of roses to the many wreathes and tributes which had accumulated under the statue when he arrived.
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(Source: Ansa)