Vatican City, 20 November, 2025 / 1:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Leo XIV traveled to Assisi on Thursday to meet with Italian bishops and pay homage to St. Francis in a visit marked by silence and prayer, part of the celebrations for the eighth centenary of the death of the “saint of the poor.”
According to Vatican News, the pontiff traveled from the Vatican by helicopter and arrived in the Italian city shortly after 8 a.m. local time. He landed at the Bastia Umbra stadium and from there traveled by car to the heart of Assisi, where St. Francis was born in 1182.
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio adopted his name upon becoming pope, while it was St. John Paul II who named St. Francis of Assisi the patron saint of ecology in 1979.
Despite the rain and cold, a number of people waited for the Holy Father and greeted him with applause and cheers of “Long live the pope!”
His first stop was the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, the burial place of the founder of the Franciscan order. Leo XIV was received by the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI by its Italian acronym), Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, and the custodian of the Sacro Convento (Franciscan friary) Friar Marco Moroni, who accompanied him to the crypt where the relics of St. Francis are kept.
