Pope to livestream Easter mass to locked down world

Pope Francis will break with centuries of tradition and livestream Easter Sunday mass to allow the world's 1.3 billion Catholics celebrate their holiest holiday under a coronavirus lockdown.

Fear and confusion in the face of a disease whose official death toll has soared past 100,000 - but whose real one is feared to be higher still -- are reshaping society and transforming the way religion is observed.

Even such hallowed traditions as the pope's messages to the faithful on Saint Peter's Square have been replaced by prayers that Francis reads into a camera from the seclusion of his private library.

His only audience is the camera and the 83-year-old Argentine has admitted that the entire experience makes him feel "caged".

Francis cut a lonely but striking figure when he slowly entered a dark and starkly empty Vatican square in his white robe for a torch-lit Good Friday procession.

It had taken place around the Roman Colosseum in the presence of at least 20,000 faithful for more than 50 years.

But Rome and the rest of Italy have been living under forced confinement since early March.

His Easter Sunday Mass and "Urbi et Orbi" blessing drew 70,000 to Saint Peter's Square last year.

The Vatican's entrance is now sealed off by armed police wearing facemasks and rubber gloves.

The pope has openly admitted that he was struggling along with everyone else to make sense of these extraordinary times.

"We have to respond to our confinement with all our creativity," Francis said in an interview published by several Catholic newspapers this week.

"We can either get depressed and alienated ... or we can get creative."

The pope's virtual prayers are just the most vivid example of religious improvisation in the age of social distancing and confinement. The faithful have already followed his advice and found creative solutions.

Thus the archbishop of Panama took to the air and blessed his tiny Central American nation from a helicopter. The faithful in Spain blasted religious music from their balconies during Holy Week.

The scale of the unfolding tragedy has seen a New York City cathedral replace rows of wooden seats with hospital beds in case the surrounding emergency wards get full to overflowing.

The Catholic Church in the Philippines is urging the faithful not to kiss the cross. Its Orthodox counterpart in Greece is planning to hold mass behind closed doors for its Easter on April 19.

"Seven out of 10 Greeks enjoy roasting lamb for Easter," Greek meat trader Angelos Asteriou told AFP in Paris.

"That's not happening this year."