Vatican City: Pope Leo XIV met with members of Opera San Francesco per i Poveri (“St. Francis’ Work for the Poor”) on Monday, praising their decades-long commitment to assisting society’s most vulnerable and urging them to continue living charity as a transformative force in human lives.
Addressing the Milan-based delegation, the Pope underscored the institution’s nearly seventy-year history of providing meals, clothing, medical care, and holistic support to over 30,000 people annually. “With joy I meet you, members of Opera San Francesco per i Poveri,” he said. “For nearly seventy years your institution has been committed to ensuring assistance and hospitality to people in need and fostering the full human development of the person in the light of the Christian tradition, especially the Franciscan tradition.”
Pope Leo outlined three dimensions of the institution’s charitable mission: assisting, welcoming, and promoting.
Assisting: The Pope emphasized the importance of being present to the needs of others, highlighting the vast array of services the organization has sustained over decades. “It is striking to see the number and variety of services that, over the years, you have managed to organise and offer to those who turn to you,” he noted.
Welcoming: Beyond material assistance, welcoming entails creating space in one’s heart and life for others. Pope Leo stressed the importance of time, listening, and prayer. “It is the attitude of looking into the eyes, of shaking hands, of stooping down, so dear to Pope Francis,” he said.
Promoting: The final dimension involves fostering human growth in dignity and freedom. The Pope reminded members that genuine charity respects the autonomy of each person, offering help without expectation or condition, just as God guides humanity with love and freedom. Quoting Saint John Paul II, he noted that charity must aim to “increase the dignity and creativity of each individual, of his or her capacity to respond to their own vocation and thus to God’s call contained within it.”
“This, dear friends,” the Pope affirmed, “is the task that the Church entrusts to you, for the benefit of the people who gather around the structures you manage and also of society as a whole.”
Concluding the audience, Pope Leo XIV bestowed his apostolic blessing upon the members of Opera San Francesco per i Poveri, expressing gratitude for their tireless service and for bearing witness to God’s love in society through acts of assistance, welcome, and promotion of human dignity.