Pope meets with poor in visit to namesake's hometown Assisi

Pope Francis is visiting the hilltop town of his namesake for the fifth time of his pontificate, to mark the Catholic Church’s world day of the poor

Pope Francis traveled to the hilltop town of his namesake for the fifth time in his pontificate on Friday to mark the Catholic Church’s world day of the poor and to hear first-hand from the neediest about their plight and hopes.

In one of his first outings in Italy since the coronavirus pandemic, Francis took his time greeting schoolchildren and some of the 500 people brought by Catholic charity groups to Assisi to participate in the pope's visit.

A refugee gave Francis a pilgrim’s walking stick and cloak outside the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels, which hosts the famed Porziuncola chapel, birthplace of the Franciscan order of the pope’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi.

Francis greeted disabled children in the basilica and prayed in the chapel before hearing testimony from a handful of people from France Spain Italy and elsewhere. The poor were being hosted for a luncheon offered by the archbishop of Assisi, while the pope was due to return home to the Vatican by midday.

The Argentine Jesuit is the first-ever pope to have named himself after the 13th century friar, who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and simplicity. The pope said in the first days of his pontificate that he chose to name himself after St. Francis because he wanted a “poor church, and for the poor."

Francis was last in Assisi in October 2020, when he signed his latest encyclical “Brothers All" on the tomb of St Francis on the anniversary of the saint's death.