Angry Pope Francis slaps woman's wrist to free himself after she grabbed his hand and yanked him towards her
Pope Francis, in a recent video posted on social media, appeared visibly disgruntled as he had to pull himself away from a woman in a crowd in St Peter's Square on Tuesday after she grabbed his hand and yanked him towards her. The incident occurred when the pontiff was in Vatican City greeting pilgrims on his way to see the Nativity scene put up in the cobbled esplanade, reports state.
Francis was greeting children, and reaching out to shake their hands when a woman standing nearby seized his hand as he was about to turn away and pulled him towards her. The gesture appeared to cause him pain as he jerked his hand free with a slap on the woman's hands. The woman reportedly had made the sign of the cross as Francis was heading towards her. However, it is not yet clear what was she saying to the pope as she attempted to pull him towards her.
Pope Francis' stroll reportedly left most tourists and Romans gathered there delighted apart from the brief upset, which showed the pontiff being angry for a few seconds in a rare public exhibit of the emotion.
People gathered to meet the pope shouted "Happy New Year!" and "Pope! Pope!" as they rushed to catch a glimpse of him. Francis, at a New Year's Eve Vespers service in St. Peter's Basilica, addressed the people there, urging them to practice more solidarity and "build bridges, not walls." His statement was an apparent reference to President Donald Trump's ongoing construction of the infamous border wall along the US-Mexico border, with an aim to keep illegal immigrants at bay.
Francis, last month, had also appeared to compare President Trump to King Herod, who massacred innocent children in ancient Palestine while attempting to kill baby Jesus, according to a Jesuit journal. The pontiff made the statement while addressing his brother Jesuits during his recent visit to Thailand. Francis reportedly slammed Trump and his administration in his thinly-veiled condemnation, suggesting Trump, like a modern-day Herod, was separating families at the border while allowing drugs to freely flow into the country.