The Pope laughs heartily at Roberto Benigni’s jokes. It is the Oscar Award show that closes World Children’s Day in St. Peter’s Square. There is also a front row seat Giorgia Meloni with her daughter Ginevra; before the mass the prime minister had met the Pontiff privately. Jokes and kisses but also words full of hope for children are those contained in the Tuscan actor’s monologue.
ANSA Agency Pope Francis met Giorgia Meloni before mass – News – Ansa.it This was reported by the Vatican press office (ANSA)He confides that as a child he said he wanted to be the Pope and “everyone would burst out laughing. So I decided to be a comedian, if they had knelt I would have been the Pope”. But maybe there is still a chance: “Almost for the next elections I will present myself, together with her, let’s make the broad field together. Let’s put the name Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known as Francesco, on the ballot: let’s win immediately”. Everyone laughs, from the cardinals to the children, from the nuns to the children’s carers. Benigni is irresistible even when he approaches Pope Francis to kiss him: “Your Holiness, I would like to hold you, kiss you, I don’t know how to show you affection, love, I could dance a tango in front. But before entering two Swiss guards told me: you can do anything here, only one thing he cannot do, touch the Pope.
But since they told me I only wanted to do that”, he adds smiling. “But I can give him a kiss, what’s the point of kisses if you don’t give them? It is a kiss that comes from all of them, which is worth a hundred thousand”. He then greets the authorities present and calls Meloni “Mr President”.
But then the conversation gets serious when Benigni collects and relaunches the words repeated these two days by Pope Francis and says that “the world is governed by people who do not know what mercy and love are. And so they commit the stupidest of sins, war: one word ugly, it makes everything dirty.
We have to put an end to this. Why is it that when children play, as soon as one gets hurt, they stop, the game ends, and instead those who wage war don’t stop at the first child who gets hurt? The war must end”, he insists, relaunching Francis’ tireless appeals for peace.
Then he quotes John Paul II: “Take your life and make a masterpiece of it”, Benigni tells the children. The comedian’s show closes the two-day event that saw kids from all over the world in Rome for the first World Children’s Day. The next one will be held in September 2026, although the children will return to Rome next year for their Jubilee, on 24 and 25 May.
There were 50,000 children and their companions in St. Peter’s Square listening to a Pope who today took on the role of catechist to ask questions to children and explain a “not easy” concept, that of the Trinity. Then the message on mercy: “Jesus forgives everything, forgives everyone, always forgives”.
But the Pope returns to ask the little ones for prayers for peace: “Pray for us, pray for parents, pray for grandparents, pray for sick children” and “above all pray for peace, so that there will be no wars”. At the Angelus today there were no appeals but only a heartfelt request: “Say hello to your grandparents”. In the Vatican there is also Lino Banfi, ‘the grandfather of Italy’. Finally, Francesco thanks the organizers “who worked so hard”, starting with the coordinators, Father Enzo Fortunato and Aldo Cagnoli.
Finally, a curiosity: today there was also a large group of altar girls serving the Pope’s mass. It’s not exactly new because in the masses that the Pope celebrates abroad during his apostolic journeys there are sometimes little girls serving the mass. But there is no memory of a solemn celebration in St. Peter’s.
ANSA Agency Pope Francis met Giorgia Meloni before mass – News – Ansa.it This was reported by the Vatican press office (ANSA)Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA
