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POPE FRANCESCO'S VISIT TO VENICE

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Venice  ||  | 28 May 2024
Iniziative (EN) - Maison de la Paix (EN)

"I am here to share!": with these words, at 8 a.m., Pope Francis lands in the women's prison of Giudecca. 
We are invited to attend the Pope's brief visit at various stages: a small delegation from the "United States of the World" participates in the events that characterise an important day. 
Pope Francis' visit lasts only five hours, enough, however, to write an important page of history for a city like Venice, already a destination for papal presences.
It begins well ahead of schedule, starting right from the Prison. For Pope Francis it is the first time in Venice, for the city it is the fourth Pope to visit it, the first ever to visit the Art Biennale. The route winds its way through calli and canals starting from the Holy See pavilion set up in the Giudecca prison.

Here, with the female prisoners of the women's penitentiary, the Pope spends about an hour in a green courtyard, listening to fragments of stories and accepting gifts, reciprocating with words of denunciation (on the problems of overcrowding, lack of resources, violence, suffering) and at the same time words of hope on a prison that "can become a place of rebirth, moral and material, where dignity is not put in isolation and where it is important to give oneself as a gift". Immediately afterwards in the prison chapel he met the artists confirming the importance and clarity of art: 'You artists are like children and visionaries,' he said.
Immediately afterwards about 1,500 young people from the Triveneto region welcome Pope Francis on the parvis of the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, where he arrives after a transfer on the motorboat of the Guardia di Finanza adapted for him: this will be one of the most representative images of the visit, amidst the chants resounding from the pier, the gondoliers raising their hands and balloons and banners flying from the boats.
To the boys and girls, Pope Francis addresses the invitation to "get up from the ground because we were made for heaven, get up from sadness to look up, get up to stand in front of life, not sitting on the sofa"
With the tenderness but, at the same time, the firmness of a father, Francis exhorts the young people saying: "Row with perseverance to go far". And before taking his leave, as he loves to do, he says to the young people "How was the thing I told you?": a unanimous cry rises from the crowd: "Get up and go!". 
Many young people symbolically accompany the Pope on his walk along the floating bridge to St Mark's Square for the concluding Mass in front of the majestic Basilica.
In his homily, Pope Francis spoke of the beauty of this unique city, 'splendid but fragile' and therefore in need of care and protection, otherwise, he warned, 'it might even cease to exist'. He therefore appealed to the authorities and inhabitants to ensure that Venice, which has always been "a place of encounter and cultural exchange", can be "a sign of beauty accessible to all, starting with the last".