“I’m passionate about the Saint of Assisi,” said Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Vicar General Emeritus of the Pope for Rome, whom Pope Francis appointed on November 4, 2017, Papal Legate for the Basilicas of Saint Francis and Saint Mary of the Angles in Assisi.
The Cardinal explained on Vatican Radio in Italian how the figure of Saint Francis has accompanied him his whole life, and how important he has been in his pastoral ministry: his first memory goes back to when he was eight years old, when he went to Assisi for the first time, accompanied by his Mother.
For Father Enzo Fortunato, Director of the Press Office of the Assisi convent, “this first memory of Cardinal Agostino Vallini highlights the affection that Italians have for the Saint of Assisi,” showing that “a Church with Francis at the center becomes increasingly a Church that hears and lives the Gospel, attentive to littlest ones, attentive to Man. And today Man is the Church’s first mission,” he said.
The first to rejoice over the choice of the new Legate are above all the Franciscan Families of the Minor Friars Conventual of Saint Francis’ Basilica of Assisi and the Friars Minor of the Basilica of the Portiuncula of Saint Mary of the Angels, as well as their respective Guardians, Fathers Mauro Gambetti and Giuseppe Renda.
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
JF
