Pope Leo XIV to visit San Marino, attend Catholic event in Italy

Pope Leo XIV will travel to San Marino on Saturday as part of his summer pastoral visits across Europe.

The pontiff is expected to spend the morning in the small republic before travelling to an Italian seaside resort for a cultural and political event organised by an influential Catholic group.

San Marino, covering about 60 square kilometres and home to roughly 33,000 people, is surrounded by Italy and located in the Apennine Mountains.

The visit will be the latest short trip by Pope Leo XIV to a European destination close to the Vatican, which he heads as the leader of the Catholic Church.

The pope previously visited another small European state, Monaco, in March as part of his international engagements.

In San Marino, the world’s oldest republic, the Chicago-born pope is to meet with local authorities before holding a prayer service in the local basilica.

The head of the Catholic Church will then head to Rimini, a popular seaside city on Italy’s Adriatic coast, for the annual gathering of Communion and Liberation, a Christian group.

The “Rimini Meeting” is a prominent event mixing religion, culture and politics that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every summer.

Historically, the event was closely linked with the Christian Democratic movement, the now-defunct centrist Catholic political party that dominated Italian politics for nearly 50 years in the post-war period.

Leo, who is scheduled to give an address at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT), will be the first pontiff to take part in the event since Pope John Paul II in 1982.

Fellow speakers this year include Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and both of Italy’s deputy prime ministers, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini.

Ahead of his address, the pope will visit an exhibition dedicated to Saint Augustine, the influential fifth-century Christian theologian who laid the foundations for the 13th-century Augustinian order to which Leo belongs.

The pontiff will also meet people with disabilities and sick members of the faith at Rimini’s cathedral before presiding over an open-air mass at the city’s port in early evening.

Leo has taken no long voyages this summer, instead venturing to Pavia, Lampedusa and Assisi for short visits.

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