Pope celebrates Easter with big crowd in flower-adorned Vatican square

Pope Francis arrives in St Peter’s Square in a wheelchair (Gregorio Borgia/AP)

Pope Francis opened a celebration of Mass on Easter Sunday joined by dozens of prelates and tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square, where spring flowers made the vast space bright.

Orange-red tulips, yellow sprays of forsythia and daffodils, and other colourful seasonal blooms were transported in trucks from the Netherlands on Saturday and set up in planters to decorate the Vatican square, which quickly filled up with Rome residents and Holy Week visitors to the city.