Inauguration ceremony of Pope Francis launched: LIVE STREAM

YEREVAN, MARCH 19, ARMENPRESS. The inauguration ceremony of newly elected Pope of Rome Francis launched in Vatican. As reports "Armenpress" delegations from 132 countries of the world along with 34 world leaders attended the inauguration ceremony. The President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault are among key European leaders, who attended the ceremony, along with EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barosso, US Vice President Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, and many others.Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II headed the Armenian delegation at the inauguration ceremony of newly elected Pope of Rome Francis. The Director of the Publishing Department of the Mother See Archbishop Natan Hovhannisyan, the Head of Inter-Church Relations Department of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin Bishop Hovakim Manukyan, and Fr. Anania Tzaturyan are included in the delegation. Catholicos Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenian Catholics Nerses Bedros XIX also attended the inauguration.

On Wednesday, after what is viewed as a short conclave, white smoke from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel heralded that a gathering of Catholic cardinals picked a new pope, choosing the first pontiff from Americas to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

The 76-year-old pope will be called Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church and the first member of the Jesuit order to lead the church and the first none-European pope in more than 1,200 years.

"Pray for me, and we'll see each other soon," the pope told the crowd of more than 100,000 gathered at St. Peter's Square.

Newly-elected Pope Francis urged Turkey to unconditionally recognize the Armenian Genocide seven years ago. During events marking the 91st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Buenos Aires, then Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio urged Turkey to recognize the Genocide as the "gravest crime of Ottoman Turkey against the Armenian people and the entire humanity."