Carmen Álvarez Cuadrado
After visiting San Marino and having lunch with a group of Augustinian nuns, the pope traveled to Rimini. For the past 47 years, this city in northeastern Italy has hosted an international gathering organized by the Communion and Liberation movement.
It had been 44 years since the city last welcomed a pope. The last one was John Paul II in 1982. Pope Leo has now broken that streak with his visit. He visited an exhibition dedicated to St. Augustine. Soon after, delivering a speech.
It's important to remember that this gathering is both cultural and political. So, speaking before 5,000 participants, the pope argued that the human person transcends divisions and conflicts.
POPE LEO XIV
We can empathize with one another, listen to one another and become friends, first between individuals and then later among peoples. People always come before borders, definitions and institutions
Pope Leo also spoke about the misuse of power and called for an end to it.
POPE LEO XIV
Let us, therefore, free our coexistence from suspicion, our culture from arrogance, our education from ideology, our work from the idolatry of profit, and technology and finance from the business of death. Starting with the organizations we have created in which we operate, let us expose the unjust power structures that lie at the root of poverty and inequality, war and environmental disasters.
Afterwards, the pope went to the harbor to celebrate a Mass at sunset. There, he noted that Rimini is a popular tourist destination. That's why he spoke about how the term “rest” can be easily misinterpreted today.
POPE LEO XIV
The world we live in offers many forms of entertainment. However, some of which lead more to distraction and ruin than to a true “returning to oneself,” and leave a void in the heart. Some call them “escapism,” as if ordinary life were a prison from which to escape.
Following a busy day, Pope Leo XIV returned to the Vatican by helicopter, where he landed at 9:15 pm.
