During Sunday Mass on May 17, Pope Francis publicly thanked all those workers who help sanitize hospitals and neighborhoods during the pandemic and offered prayers for their work and safety.

Francis celebrated the centenary Mass at the altar on the tomb of St. John Paul II. And for the first time since the national lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, he celebrated in the presence of over 100 people.

The pope also called on people “to embrace all those who are experiencing situations of precariousness, abandonment, marginalization and rejection as a result of Covid-19.”

During his early morning Mass, Pope Francis joined leaders of every religion marking May 14 as a day of prayer, fasting and acts of charity to ask God to stop the coronavirus pandemic.

On this week’s episode of the “Inside the Vatican” podcast, the hosts discuss the Australian Royal Commission’s findings that Cardinal George Pell knew about priests abusing children in the Ballarat diocese as early as 1973.

Pope Francis also called on world leaders “to invest in health care as the primary common good.”