Pope Leo XIV will visit the tiny country of San Marino on Saturday before attending a cultural and political event organized by a powerful Catholic organization at an Italian coastal resort.
The pontiff will spend the morning at San Marino, a 60-square-kilometer (24-square-mile) enclave of 33,000 inhabitants in the Apennine Mountains, as part of a series of quick pastoral visits near home this summer.
The pope’s visit to the world’s smallest country, Vatican City, followed one in March to another European statelet, the Principality of Monaco.
The Chicago-born pope will meet with local leaders in San Marino, the world’s oldest republic, before leading a prayer session at the local basilica.
The Pope of the Catholic Church will then travel to Rimini, a prominent beach city on Italy’s Adriatic coast, for the annual Communion and Liberation Christian gathering.
The “Rimini Meeting” is a well-known event that combines religion, culture, and politics, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each summer.
Historically, the event was intimately associated with the Christian Democratic movement, a now-defunct centrist Catholic political party that dominated Italian politics for over 50 years after the war.
Leo, who is set to speak at 4:00 p.m. (1400 GMT), will be the first pontiff to attend the event since Pope John Paul II in 1982.
This year’s speakers include Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and both of Italy’s deputy prime ministers, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini.
Before his speech, the pope will visit an exhibition honoring Saint Augustine, the important fifth-century Christian theologian who established the groundwork for the 13th-century Augustinian order to which Leo belongs.
The pontiff will also meet persons with disabilities and sick members of the faith at Rimini’s cathedral before presiding over an open-air mass at the city’s port in early evening.
Leo has taken no long travels this summer, instead journeying to Pavia, Lampedusa, and Assisi for brief visits.
