Mattarella visited Pope Leo in Vatican in June.
Pope Leo XIV will make an official visit to the Quirinale Palace in Rome on Tuesday to meet Italy’s president Sergio Mattarella, the third meeting between the pontiff and the Italian head of state.
The visit followed Mattarella’s first audience with Pope Leo at the Vatican on 6 June, and prior to that the president greeted the pope on the conclusion of his inauguration Mass on 18 May.
The official visit is governed by strict protocol and will see Pope Leo accompanied by a delegation, including Cardinals Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), and Baldassarre Reina, the pontiff’s vicar in Rome.
The visit will begin at the Vatican, where at 10.20 Pope Leo will leave the Apostolic Palace and depart by car from the Courtyard of San Damaso, followed by members of the official delegation.
According to the schedule released by the Holy See, the papal procession will reach the Vatican’s border with Italy in Piazza Pio XII, where the pontiff will be met by the Italian government, represented by foreign minister Antonio Tajani and undersecretary to the prime minister Alfredo Mantovano.
The pope will then proceed, escorted by police outriders, to the presidential palace where he will be greeted with a welcoming ceremony in the Courtyard of Honour.
Here both national anthems will be played – Vatican and Italian – before the pope and the president proceed inside the vast palace for official photographs and a formal exchange of gifts.
The pope and president will make their way to the Hall of Mirrors, where they will be awaited by Italy’s senate speaker Ignazio La Russa, president of the lower house Lorenzo Fontana, and prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
The visit will conclude in the ballroom with official speeches before the papal procession returns to the Vatican.
The last time a pope visited the Quirinale was on 10 June 2017, when Francis visited Mattarella following his re-election for a second term as president.
The first papal visit to the Quirinale, once a papal residence, was on 28 December 1939 when Pope Pius XII met with King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena.
This was the first time a pope had visited the Quirinale since 1870 and was a symbolically significant event, occurring nearly 70 years after the capture of Rome and 10 years after the signing of the Lateran Treaty which established the Vatican City as a sovereign state and regulated relations between Italy and the Catholic Church.
Photo credit: Marco Iacobucci Epp / Shutterstock.com.
