RIMINI – Around 400 people will leave Rimini to meet the Pope Leo XIV Wednesday 23 September in St. Peter’s Square. The delegation of the Diocese will bring the thanks of the Rimini community to the Pontiff for the visit last August 22nd and will give him some gifts linked to the city.
Five buses organized by Ariminum Travel will bring around 230 participants to Rome, to which will be added a bus from the parish of Viserba Mare and over one hundred people who will reach the capital by their own means.
The program includes meeting at 7 in St. Peter’s Square for the distribution of passes and the audience with the Pope at 10 Leo XIVduring which the delegation will greet and the gifts will be delivered. At 12, in St. Peter’s Basilica, the bishop Nicolò Anselmi will preside over the Mass. The return is scheduled from 4pm.
The delegation will also carry the banner “Thank you Pope Leo!”, already displayed during the visit on 22 August. The gifts include a volume on the Malatesta Temple offered by the Municipality of Rimini, an artistic ceramic from Confartigianato Emilia-Romagna, a rescue uniform from the Cooperativa Bagnini of Rimini, the complete work of the painter’s religious subjects Giorgio Bellini and the special red and white Rimini Calcio shirt created on the occasion of the Pope’s visit. The Diocese will also deliver the miter used by the Pope during the day in Rimini.
«We return to the Pope to say thank you, but also to tell him that what we received on August 22nd we do not simply want to keep as a beautiful memory. Our thanks want to become a commitment”, underlines the bishop Nicolò Anselmi.
The appointment will precede the diocesan assembly on 4 October and the start of the new pastoral year. «We want the experience of meeting Pope Leo to become energy for walking together as a Church», states the vicar general Maurizio Fabbri.
