{"id":378690,"date":"2022-10-31T06:06:31","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T20:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=378690"},"modified":"2022-10-31T06:06:31","modified_gmt":"2022-10-30T20:06:31","slug":"cnmi-receives-blessings-from-pope-francis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cnmi-receives-blessings-from-pope-francis\/","title":{"rendered":"CNMI receives blessings from Pope Francis"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_378691\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-378691\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Pope-Francis-pix.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-378691\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Pope-Francis-pix-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"638\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-378691\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and first lady Diann T. Torres meet with Pope Francis following a pilgrimage to the Vatican City. (OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Pope Francis has blessed the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands following a recent pilgrimage by Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and first lady Diann T. Torres to the Vatican City, where they personally met with the pontiff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was an extreme blessing not just to see His Holiness, Pope Francis, in the Vatican City, but to meet with him and get blessings for our people and our Commonwealth,&#8221; said Torres, who expressed his and the first lady\u2019s gratitude to Pope Francis for welcoming them to the Holy City.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His Holiness Pope Francis then gave us his blessings to bring back to the CNMI.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI asked our Pope to bless Diann, our marriage, and the people of the Marianas, and so he said a little prayer and blessing. He blessed Diann and I, and did a small special prayer for the people of the Marianas. I was overwhelmed with joy, and that day was definitely the day to remember. I\u2019ve met presidents and I\u2019ve met other leaders, but there is something very special to be held by our Pope,\u201d said Torres. <em>(PR)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Francis has blessed the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands following a recent pilgrimage&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":378692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,3896],"class_list":["post-378690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-pope-francis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}