Assisi

“It’s not an ideology, principle or method that St. Francis embodies. It’s his love of Christ crucified.”

The teen loved St. Francis “very much,” his mother, Antonia Salzano, told Catholic News Service Oct. 9. St. Francis “was a very Eucharistic soul who used to attend Mass twice a day,” and her son sought to imitate that same Eucharistic devotion throughout his brief life.

“The pope’s first official trip outside Rome in more than seven months couldn’t come at a better, or more critical, time.”

Pope Francis still has some major events on his fall 2020 agenda despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pope Francis will travel to Assisi Oct. 3 to sign an encyclical on the social, political and economic obligations that flow from a belief that all people are children of God and therefore brothers and sisters to one another.