Photos of the Week: Carnival celebrations; VaLENTines Day

By Kit Doyle · February 16, 2024
 (RNS) — Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s photo gallery includes unique Carnival celebrations around the world, Ash Wednesday and Valentines Day coinciding, and more. Students line up to get their foreheads marked with a cross of ashes during Ash Wednesday Mass in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. Ash Wednesday for Catholics worldwide ushers in a period of penitence and reflection, known as the season of Lent, which leads up to Easter Sunday. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara) Christian activists demonstrate for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war after an Ash Wednesday Mass near the White House in Washington, Feb. 14, 2024. (RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain) Hearts with messages cover a tree outside the Basilica of St. Valentine in Terni, Italy, on Feb. 13, 2024. (RNS photo/Claire Giangravé) People attend a candlelight vigil for victims of a shooting at a Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory rally Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. More than 20 people were injured and one woman killed in the shooting near the end of Wednesday's rally held at nearby Union Station. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, walks across the carpeted steps with Hindu priest Brahmaviharidas Swami to inaugurate the first stone-built Hindu temple in the Middle East, belonging to Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha in Abu Mureikha, 25 miles northeast of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) Momotxorros dance around a bonfire while wearing traditional Carnival costumes in Alsasua, northern Spain, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. During the Carnival Momotxorros, characters who seem to have been resurrected from a prehistoric ritual come out onto the streets wearing horns and hiding their faces under headscarves, and dressed in a white sheet stained with blood. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos) A dancer from the Tom Maior samba school performs during a Carnival parade in Sao Paulo, Brazil, early Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) A member of the well-known Mardi Gras group The Tramps holds a traditional coconut throw during the Krewe of Zulu Parade on Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton) Aymara couples, wearing hats made of sweet bread that represent hope against hunger in the coming year, dance during "Martes de Challa," or Challa Tuesday, a Carnival celebration that gives thanks to the "Pachamama" or Mother Earth, in Achocalla, Bolivia, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita) A woman holds up her son, dressed as Simba from the Lion King, during the "Ceu na Terra" or Heaven on Earth pre-Carnival street party, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado) Supporters of same-sex marriage bill take part in a rally, at central Syntagma Square, in Athens, Greece, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. Greece's parliament voted Thursday to legalize same-sex civil marriage in a first for an Orthodox Christian country and despite opposition from the influential Greek Orthodox Church. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas) Archival Photos Civil rights activists petition God’s guidance through song, with hand’s linked to symbolize the united effort, in Hattiesburg, Miss., in 1964. Ministers, rabbis and Black leaders of the community staged prolonged picketing in Hattiesburg to protest voter registration practices. An effort continued there on an interreligious, interracial basis to increase the number of registered Black voters. (RNS archive photo by George Elfie Ballis. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.) The Rev. John F. Wilson, port chaplain of the Cleveland Catholic diocese, offers a memorial Mass for two stevedores killed in accidents during the past year at the port in Cleveland, Ohio, in Dec. 1963. The altar was set up on a fork-lift crane inside a chilly warehouse. Dock workers and company officials assisted at the Mass, the first ever offered on Cleveland’s waterfront. A special prayer, composed by Father Wilson, was distributed in memory of the dead workers. (RNS archive photo by Russell L. Faist. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.)
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