Vatican, 24 October, 2022 / 8:07 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis offered a prayer for Italy on Sunday as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni became the country’s first female leader.
“And today, at the start of a new government, let us pray for unity and peace in Italy,” the pope said at the end of his Angelus address on Oct. 23.
Hours after the handover ceremony between Meloni and her predecessor Mario Draghi in Rome’s Chigi Palace, the new prime minister thanked Pope Francis for his comments.
Meloni wrote on social media: “I thank His Holiness #PopeFrancis for his thoughts on Italy on this very important day for the government I have the honor to preside over.”
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops’ conference, sent his “sincerest congratulations” to Meloni after the new government’s swearing-in ceremony at the Quirinal Palace.
“With you also opens a historic page for our country: the new government is the first led by a woman in the role of prime minister,” Zuppi said.
The cardinal highlighted the many challenges that Italy is facing, listing what he described as the Italian bishops’ main concerns: “poverty, the demographic winter, the protection of the elderly, regional disparities, the ecological transition and the energy crisis, employment and job opportunities for young people, the reception and integration of migrants, the streamlining of bureaucratic procedures, and reforms of state democratic structures and electoral law.”
Zuppi added: “Looming over all these is the tragedy of the ongoing war that requires the commitment of all, in full harmony with Europe, in the inescapable and urgent search for a just path that can finally lead to peace.”
The cardinal promised that the Catholic Church in Italy “will not fail to engage in a constructive dialogue inspired solely by the desire to contribute to the pursuit of the common good of the country and to the protection of the inviolable rights of the person and the community.”
