The surprise visit of Leo XIV Last Thursday he reported a Pope reigning to Castel Gandolfo after twelve years. The last time Francesco had come to the mid -August 2013 to celebrate Mass and to recite the Angelus. Bergoglio did not like the place chosen by his predecessors for the holiday and snubbed him throughout his pontificate. Not only that: in 2016 he chose to open to the public The rooms and papal villas making it a museum pole. A choice that managed to revive the tourist appeal of the town, but that was not enough to appease the wounded pride of the Castellani for having lost the presence of the Pope after several centuries. Leone XIV’s trip even a month after its election bodes that there may be a return of this tradition in summer. A tradition that even dates back to Seventeenth.
The good air
Castel Gandolfo has become the summer residence of the Popes thanks to Urban VIII That before the election in 1623 he had become of the house in this splendid center of the Castelli Romani. As Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, in fact, he had bought a house and vineyards in order to breathe the good air given by the hills and the proximity of Lake Albano. Urbano VIII bought the villa of the Prelate Visconti and transformed it into Villa Barberiniplace visited last Thursday by Leone XIV. Before then the Popes granted themselves to the rest periods but never in a stable place: Gregory XV, for example, was equally going to the castles but preferred Frascati.
The agreed
In the Agreed During the fascist era, Italy granted the Holy See the full ownership of the Papal Palace and Villa Barberini with respective endowments. The area consisting of the pontifical villas in Castel Gandolfo is therefore an extraterritorial area. Francesco, in reality, was not the first pope to “open” his apartments to the castles to the people: Pius XII did it during the Second World War who welcomed fifteen thousand displaced people in the villas in the hope of being able to avoid them the bombings since this area enjoyed extraterritoriality. However, the aerial bombings of the allies did not spare this area of Castel Gandolfo, recording a hundred victims including 17 Clarisse nuns. For the incident Pope Pacelli activated the cardinal secretary of state Luigi Maglione to formally protest with the government of Washington.
The Vatican 2
Just in Castel Gandolfo Pius XII died in 1958 as well as Paolo VI twenty years later. Both returned to San Pietro, already dressed in pontifical, arriving on board a funeral chariot from the Castellana town. The procession to Rome was solemn in the case of Pacelli, while not for Montini who had chosen to abolish the papal court. John Paul II loved Castel Gandolfo very much he visited for the first time dressed in white on October 25, 1978, also going to the parish church. Wojtyła called the Gemelli hospital, the place of many conferences for him, the “Vatican 3” alluding to Castel Gandolfo as Vatican 2. The town that dominates Lake Albano also entered the heart of Benedict XVI. Between the palace and the pontifical villas, Ratzinger spent most of his summers as Pope. Here, on August 1, 2005, he received the writer Oriana Fallaci in a historic private hearing thanks to the intercession of his friend Monsignor Rino Fisichella. Of him, the great Tuscan writer wrote: “I love Ratzinger. Not only because he is a cultured and intelligent man but because he is a man with balls. The only one, for example, who in the Vatican took clear position against the pedophile priests of the United States. And the only one, knows, who defends the West”. Also in Castel Gandolfo instead Benedict XVI, in the summer of 2007, refused to give hearing to Castel Gandolfo to the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice That a few years earlier he had treated the correspondent of John Paul II against the war in Iraq, Cardinal Pio Laghi.
In Castel Gandolfo Ratzinger he chose to make his last public appearance from the reigning pope and then he had remained in the first period after his retreat, also meeting his successor Francesco for the first time. From Pope emeritus he has returned several times in the Pontifical villas Dei Castelli, one of the most loved places in his life and that now also Leone XIV has shown to appreciate.