The cities of the Most Holy Crucifix and the Marcian network “Pilgrims of hope”. The meeting that the two city networks had on the weekend with Cardinal Baldassarre Reina, a vicar general of Pope Francis for the diocese of Rome, on the occasion of the Jubilee, was successfully concluded.
On Friday 14 and Saturday 15 March the National Association of Crocifisso cities and the Network of the Marcian cities, led by their respective presidents Giovanni Papasso (Mayor of Cassano alla Ionio) e Marco Rizzo (of Castellabate), they celebrated the Jubilee with a delegation of about 300 pilgrims from the eighty municipality that follow the two association courses, accompanied by the first citizens, parish priests and friends ambassadors. The initiative, as well as by the two presidents, was organized thanks to the precious collaboration of the secretary of both networks of the city, the cultural operator Giuseppe Semeraro.
The program scheduled the reception of the delegation for Friday 14 was in Piazza Pia at 4 pm by the volunteers of the National Committee of the Jubilee; Therefore, the processional procession started due to the conciliation and passage of the Holy Door; Subsequently in San Pietro the solemn pontifical presided over by the cardinal was held Mauro Gambetti, Archpriest of the Basilica, and concelebrated by fourteen parish priests of the associated communities, led by their respective ecclesiastical assistants: Msgr. Pasquale Morelli for the cities of the Crucifix (together with the deputy Don Maurizio Bloise) And Don Antonio Quaranta for the Marciana network. On Saturday 15 March, instead of the special hearing with Pope Francis, still in precarious health conditions, at 11.30, in San Giovanni Laterano, the meeting with the vicar of His Holiness for the diocese of Rome, the Cardinal Baldassarre Reina. During the celebrations, the two association courses were presented and the gifts for the Holy Father delivered, including the offers for Charity, the Pomo della Pace and the book of the Crocifisso cities.
“We decided to face the jubilee stage equally – underlined the mayor Papasso accompanied by the councilor with delegation to relations with the Catholic world Elisa Fasanella – To live it in communion with the universal Church and tighten all together around the Holy Father, to whom we wish a prompt recovery because it is missing from the whole world. During the cordial meeting with the vicar of the Pope Cardinal Baldassarre Reina I brought the greeting of the cities of the Most Holy Crucifix and I remembered the coming of Pope Francis in 2014 in Sibari where he left us two great testimonies: those of the excommunication of the mafia and that of not making us steal hope. In fact, in fact, as local administrators, we must not make our citizens lose hope. It was an exciting and moving experience: I had never imagined that in the course of my life I would have the honor of crossing the Holy Door bringing the crucifix and meeting the Pope’s vicar in the year of the Jubilee. I am grateful for all this ”.
