‘Lunch with the Pope’ event welcomed about 200 people
ROME — Pope Leo XIV ate lunch with special guests — many of whom are experiencing social vulnerability — on July 11 in the Pontifical Gardens at Castle Gandolfo.
Around 200 people from the Diocese of Rome took part in the event on July 11. “Lunch with the Pope” was “a day of welcome and fraternity,” the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education said in a statement.
Before the guests, including nearly 40 children, enjoyed the guided tour through the gardens, the day begun with Mass celebrated by Cardinal Fabio Baggio, general director of the Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education, and concelebrated by Archbishop Luis Marín de San Martín, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity.
“I came without a prepared speech, but I did come with hunger — hunger for justice, hunger for genuine charity, hunger for a Church that truly knows how to open its doors, to welcome and receive everyone; where there is love for all and no one is an enemy, where all of us know how to live reconciliation, forgiveness and peace,” Pope Leo said, welcoming those present.
Pope Leo recalled that one of the pope’s titles is the “Pontiff — a builder of bridges.”
“And today we too want to build a bridge with all of you, with your families and with the society in which we want to live — a society marked by justice, where the causes of poverty can be eliminated and where the causes of the injustices that still exist in our world can be overcome,” Pope Leo said.
Only a few months after taking upon the See of Peter, Pope Leo met with people experiencing vulnerability from the Diocese of Albano. That meeting on Aug. 17, 2025, gave birth to an annual tradition of encounters with the underprivileged.
“Each year, a diocese will be invited to involve people living in situations of poverty, refugees, migrants, and others experiencing social vulnerability,” to let them experience “the beauty of creation” and create an “opportunity to meet the Holy Father,” Laudato Si’ Center said.
Cardinal Baggio said in a July 7 press release that “Borgo Laudato si’ was created to show that the care of creation and the care of the human person are one and the same mission.”
“At Borgo Laudato si’, the Holy Father meets people experiencing vulnerability, reaffirming that the Church is called to inhabit the places where human dignity calls for listening, closeness and hope,” Cardinal Baggio said.
Pope Leo expressed his gratitude to those who organized the July 11 gathering, which included dozens of organizations that on a daily basis assist people experiencing vulnerability.
“Whenever we come together, whenever we share this spirit of encounter around the same table — the one table where Jesus is also present among us,” Pope Leo said.
“We are truly building a different world, a world of hope, a world that is a light in the midst of our own,” he added.
The pontiff urged that in a world fractured by “violence, hatred and discrimination,” communities need to “work together and strive always to be this kind of Church: a Church of justice, peace and love,” praying that in families of those that gathered in the Castel Gandolfo picturesque setting people “find peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.”
