Farewell visit of the head of state Sergio Mattarella to Pope Francis. In view of the end of the seven-year period, Mattarella went to the Vatican for the audience, in the Library Room of the Apostolic Palace. The presidential procession from the Quirinale traveled via della Conciliazione and entered the Vatican through St. Peter’s Square and the Arco delle Campane, to head to the Cortile di San Damaso, from where President Mattarella went up to the Third Loggia of the Apostolic Palace for the ‘meeting with Pope Francis. The farewell visit lasted 45 minutes, from 9.20 to 10.05. The head of state left the Vatican at 10.20
Among the gifts the message of Peace 2022 still not published
The farewell visit lasted 45 minutes, from 9.20 to 10.05. The head of state left the Vatican at 10.20. The Pope gave Mattarella a ceramic painting depicting St. Peter’s Basilica seen from the Vatican Gardens and the volumes of papal documents, with the Message for Peace for 2022, the Document on Human Brotherhood, the book on the Statio Orbis of March 27 2020, by Lev. Among the gifts of Pope Francis to the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella there is the first copy of the Message for the World Day for Peace 2022, which has not yet been published. The president reciprocated with a print with a View of Rome from the Quirinale and a volume on the Madonna del Sewing by Guido Reni exhibited at the Quirinale.
The first meeting on April 18, 2015
The first meeting between the two on April 18, 2015, in the Vatican. And in May 2017, among other meetings, Pope Bergoglio’s visit to the Quirinale. Mattarella participated in various public events chaired by the Pope, in the Vatican, but also in Rome, as happened on the occasion of the international meeting of prayer for peace between the great world religions, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio in Piazza del Campidoglio on 20 October 2020. The head of state had also attended the CEI event “Mediterranean frontier of peace” in Bari, in February 2020. Throughout the seven-year period, Mattarella and the Pope maintained a relationship of great warmth and cordiality, of profound sharing and also personal friendship. There was no shortage of greetings from the head of state to the Pontiff, who turns 85 just tomorrow, 17 December 2021.
Pax Christi: they interpret life as service
The farewell meeting between President Sergio Mattarella and Pope Francis “has the authentic flavor of a meeting between two people (and two personalities) who live their mandate in the continuous effort not to let roles prevail over people”. He writes it in an online comment Mosaic of Peace, founded by Don Tonino Bello, an organ of the Catholic pacifist movement Pax Christi. «With careful discretion and without invasion of the field, respecting one’s own spheres and the secular nature of the State as well as the space of faiths, in the spirit of service always. Especially in the most critical and difficult situations », underlines the priest and activist for non-violence Tonio Dell’Olio. “Some would say that it is a style of the past – he continues -, but rather each one hopes that we do not resign ourselves to a politics and a power that is grabbing and vulgar, short-sighted and word-of-mouth, gambler and social networkist”. And he adds: “Everyone should keep in their hearts the image that the agencies will give us of the meeting of two men who interpret their own lives, before the power they are called to exercise, exclusively as a service, and who distill ideas, visions, proposals and choices with simple but important words for everyone’s life ».
