The pontiff got here to enhance a late summer time custom begun by Pope Celestine V 728 years in the past to encourage the devoted to hunt forgiveness for sins.
L’Aquila’s Collemaggio Basilica incorporates the stays of Celestine, who resigned in 1294 after solely a number of months within the papacy. As pontiff, Celestine initiated the August observe wherein devoted might move by the basilica’s Holy Door. After assembly sure non secular necessities, they will obtain a plenary indulgence, which removes punishment for sin.
Aides introduced Francis in a wheelchair to the basilica’s austere, brown wood door. After Francis, who has a painful knee downside, was helped to face, he used a sturdy olive tree department to rap 3 times on the door, which then then opened. With a ramp put in place, Francis limped into the basilica, then prayed silently earlier than the mausoleum containing the stays of Celestine, whose face is roofed with a silver masks.
Celestine was ridiculed by Dante within the “Divine Comedy” for abdicating his papal position.
“The common-or-garden seem to the eyes of males as weak and losers, however in actuality they’re the true winners as a result of they’re the one ones who belief utterly within the Lord and know His will,’’ Francis mentioned.
“Humility doesn’t consist in devaluating oneself however relatively in that wholesome realism that makes us acknowledge our potential and in addition our distress,” Francis mentioned. He hailed the “brave’ Celestine V as a result of “no logic of energy was capable of imprison or handle him.”
Celestine reminded all that mercy and forgiveness assist folks to move from “anguish and guilt to freedom and pleasure,’’ Francis mentioned.
Whereas the helicopter that flew him from the Vatican to L’Aquila earlier Sunday morning saved circling above the city, with the pilot looking for a break in cloud over so it might land, Francis mentioned he was impressed to ponder the worth of mercy.
“At a sure level, there was a break within the clouds, and the pilot zoomed by,” Francis mentioned, encouraging folks, when their lives are clouded by troubles, to make the most of a ”break” when the opportunity of mercy presents itself.
Earlier than Francis, the final pope to go to L’Aquila was his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who got here to consolation quake survivors in 2009 and paid tribute to Celestine. Benedict would resign in 2013, the primary pontiff in almost 600 years to take action. He now lives in a monastery on Vatican grounds.
Francis, who’s 85, has referred to as resignation a suitable possibility for pontiffs who really feel they not can adequately lead the world’s greater than 1.3 billion Catholics.
He greeted townspeople exterior the city’s Duomo, or cathedral, which remains to be being repaired from quake injury, and visited with family of a few of the victims.
Francis famous that inmates from space prisons had been amongst well-wishers exterior the cathedral. “In you, I salute an indication of hope, as a result of in prisons there are such a lot of, too many victims,” Francis mentioned.
D’Emilio reported from Rome.
