Pope in Loreto: Gisotti, "brief, but intense" visit

Francis has left for Rome. He wanted to sign the post-synodal apostolic exhortation for young people "Christus vivit!" in the Marian city. In the crowd he saw a sick child crying because he could not greet him, he stopped his walk and came back to greet him.

Loreto (AsiaNews) - A brief but "intense" visit, in which Pope Francis "managed to touch hearts and even different dimensions: young people, the family and the sick". These were the observations of the interim director of the Vatican Press Office Alessandro Gisotti at the end of the visit to Loreto today, which he defined as “historic, first of all for the signing of the post-synod apostolic exhortation for young people" Christus vivit!".

The Pope concluded the visit after lunch, enjoyed with 36 "guests" and also prepared by the students of a hotel institute. Shortly before 14.00, Francis left Loreto for the plain of Montorso, where he took the helicopter that brought him back to the Vatican.

With regards the Exhortation, Gisotti argued that "the Pope wanted to sign it here, entrusting this document on the young to the Virgin Mary. Then, as historians have noted, 162 years have passed - so the time of Pius IX, when Italy was not yet united - since a Pope had celebrated Mass within the Holy House of Loreto. Then the festival of the people, the welcome of the people, of the pilgrims of Loreto, the young, the families and the sick; there we really saw Pope Francis touched by this meeting with the sick - many sick - in the Basilica ”.

Gisotti also told of "a small and significant episode": the Pope saw a sick child cry because he had failed to greet him, he stopped his walk and came back to greet him. "He spent quite a while with this child, he hugged him and we saw the joy on this child’s expressing this great moment."