Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass for participants in the Jubilee of Instiutional Ceremonial Offices and upheld three Italian laymen as “shining examples of hope and justice, of humility and dedication to the State”: the Servant of God Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954), Ven. Salvo D’Acquisto (1920-1943), and Blessed Rosario Livatino (1952-1990).
“If a state does not convert from the injustices that threaten it and from the corruption that ruins it, it risks dying,” Pope Leo preached. “May the memory of their life and death spur us on to the conversion that they themselves experienced.”
The jubilee was not announced on the Vatican’s jubilee website, and the number of participants was even smaller than the 2,000 who attended the concurrent Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies. The papal Mass did not take place in a church, but in the Hall of Benediction of the Apostolic Palace.