Six years after the last meeting of the diocese with Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square where Gianni Morandi also performed – it was 21 April 2018 – eight hundred pilgrims from Cesena-Sarsina following Bishop Douglas Regattieri will be received in audience by Bergoglio on Saturday to celebrate the bicentenary of Pius VII Barnaba Chiaramonti, monk of the Monte Abbey born in 1742, elected in 1800 and died in 1823.
Among these also the deputy mayor Christian Castorri representing the municipality of Cesena and a delegation of heirs of the Chiaramonti family. Among the pilgrims also the budget councilor Camillo Acerbi. Last October, Pope Francis addressed a message to the bishop of Cesena-Sarsina on the Chiaramonte year, praising Pius VII for having become an ‘ambassador of peace to those who exercised temporal power’.
The pilgrimage, as anticipated by the diocesan weekly ‘Il Corriere Cesena’, will also involve the dioceses of Imola and Tivoli and Palestrina where the pontiff was bishop and cardinal and of Savona-Noli where Pius VII was taken prisoner by Napoleon and taken to France . In 1814 he obtained his freedom and was able to set foot in Cesena again. 14 priests will participate in the pilgrimage, seven buses with pilgrims who will be given the kit with handkerchief and booklet with text on the life of Pius VII. The abbot of Monte Mauro Maccarinelli and six Benedictine monks will also be part of the group.
The diocesan choir of Cesena-Sarsina ‘Alma canta’ with 60 choristers and ten musicians will enliven the opening of the audience at 10am in the Paul VI room with Pope Francis and the mass in St. Peter’s at 3pm where pilgrims will be able to venerate the pope’s tomb Pius VII. The mass will be celebrated by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the pope’s vicar general. The last pilgrimage of the diocese of Cesena-Sarsina to the Vatican city was held, as mentioned, in 2018, to reciprocate the visit of Pope Francis to Cesena on 1 October 2017, together with other Emilian dioceses.
The closing of the year dedicated to Pope Chiaramonti will be held on Tuesday 20 August in the Cathedral in Cesena. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, will preside over a solemn Eucharistic concelebration which will seal the events dedicated to the two hundredth anniversary of the death of Pope Barnaba Chiaramonti.
