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by Maurizio Troccoli
Assisi awaits Francis the Pope for the fourth time. Hundreds of pilgrims have arrived here in recent days. We are in the celebrations of Saint Francis, patron saint of Italy, the day of his transit, of his death on October 4, 1226. And the two events, together with the fact that this year the nearby Marches will be the protagonists of the ritual Oil, meaning that he donated it to feed the votive lamp, brought an unexpected number of people to the Umbrian citadel. Many of which may not cross or see Francis. Covid restrictions have caused the Pope to impose the utmost rigor. A day defined as a private visit, with Bergoglio arriving by car from Rome, to the entrance door of the Lower Basilica of Assisi. Then at a fast pace towards the tomb of San Francisco, around 2:40 p.m. Here he will stay with some friars, about twenty, and probably the bishop of Assisi and the mayor of the city. It is here that he will celebrate Mass and it is here that the new long-awaited encyclical will be signed, the first, after more than 200 years of being sealed outside the walls of the Vatican, and the first in Assisi, after the homily and the liturgy. Then a short greeting and, after about an hour and a half, departure for Rome. An investigation by the Seismograph, a Paravatican site, records that it was 206 years since a Pontiff had signed an encyclical far from the Vatican. We must go back to May 1814 with the encyclical “Il Trionfo”, published on May 14, 1814 in Cesena, the birthplace of Pope Pius VII. The document announced to the Catholics of the world the recovery of the Papal States after the kidnapping of Pope Niccolò Maria Chiaramonti by Napoleon in 1809 and then exiled to France. We must go back to May 1814 with the encyclical “Il Trionfo”, published on May 14, 1814 in Cesena, the birthplace of Pope Pius VII. The document announced to the Catholics of the world the recovery of the Papal States after the kidnapping of Pope Niccolò Maria Chiaramonti by Napoleon in 1809 and then exiled to France.
Out of time Regardless of a private visit, those who know Bergoglio know that the off-program can become more than a hypothesis. That is, it could arrive in Assisi, or simply Umbria, long before the scheduled time at the Sacred Convent. That’s 14.40. At this point, in journalistic and ecclesiastical circles, but also in the telephone calls of institutional representatives, there is the classic ‘said and unspoken’, that ‘who knows, but it would be nice’, which has characterized almost all the Pope’s visits Francisco. reserving unscheduled surprises that then went around the world. The Pope who begins to confess in Santa Maria degli Angeli or who, suddenly, arrives accompanied by an old man to the Hermitage of the prisons.
This time it was rumored, and so it was, that his departure could be anticipated, compared to what was thought to be around noon on Saturday from Vatican City. As Umbria24 anticipated, he had thought of the Vallegloria monastery, where he then arrived, for the following reasons: if the Pope left for Umbria around 10, he would be here around noon. And here every suggestion, hypothesis, becomes a scene on the lips of the many who have focused attention on the visit to Assisi, at the time of the Covid, for a new encyclical on the pandemic. The early schedule included a lunch break. Which, due to the well-known austerity of the poor Pope – who since he was in charge of the Argentine Jesuits, has only been reserved a room and an office, of limited size, the one who still wears the white robe with ease of a rural priest, wearing heavy black boots; It couldn’t have been anywhere else if it weren’t in a convent. And then: what suggestion would it be to go back to that monastery to which you feel attached and which was already a surprise visit? That of Vallegloria, which was the second Pope to enter after Gregory IX and which represents the first convent of the Poor Clares, founded by Santa Chiara, outside the walls of Assisi. And if we speculate about monasteries, why not imagine a second surprise at the Santa Chiara monastery in Assisi, where, also here, Francis the Pope already passed, on the occasion of his first visit in 2013? Well, there are several hypotheses, including that of a prayer on the grave of Carlo Acutis, the young man who will be blessed in just one week, in the middle of Assisi and that Pope Francis has indicated as a symbol and message of the world of youth and the internet . Therefore, the tomb was opened just a few days ago and the celebrations began while waiting for the proclamation of the blessed. Certainly, hypothesis, for which official sources confirm that it is simply a quick visit to the Sacred Convent of Assisi, on the grave of ‘fra Francesco’.
The hurricane A visit, fourth in Assisi, sixth in Umbria, which could even anticipate another, next November, from 19 to 21, on the occasion of the ‘Economy of Francesco’ and that comes in the middle of the media hurricane that hits the Vatican, with a Poor Pope increasingly determined to demand a Church that replaces finances, the constant practice of supporting the least. This was demonstrated on the occasion of the emptying of the IOR, the Vatican bank, in which, for the first time, many holders of accounts and securities received an invitation to go clean their dirty money elsewhere. For this reason, Pope Francis also received threats from mafia circles, considered dangerous by the Italian justice that communicated it to him. And it happens with the scandal of the purchase of the London palace, which saw Cardinal Angelo Becciu torpedoed by the Pope, stripped of his purple cardinal, escaped from the next conclave, until now at the head of the Congregation of Saints, after being the number two. from the Vatican Secretariat of State and Apostolic Nuncio to various parts of the world, from New Zealand, Africa, South America and, finally, Cuba. The fact that under his direction, the Vatican Secretariat of State has carried out financial transactions considered ‘opaque and suspicious’, ranging from the oil rigs in Liberia, to the ‘Athena Capital Global Opportunities Fund’, with the purchase of the building in London , for which the sums of the Pope himself were invested, that is, those of Saint Peter, the Jesuit took Bergoglio, the politician who prefers missionary practice to theology, to tell him ‘I no longer trust you’. The press around the world, which today accredited more than 200 journalists in Assisi, has its antennas aimed at Francis’ message, from the eye of the storm. While many wait for a document or perhaps a book on economics suitable for Pope Francis, who knows that Assisi is not the preface.
