This is how 6,000 people from the “pope's hospital” received Francis in 2019.
Doctors, nurses, staff…and, of course, children filled the hall. And the Pope encouraged them to get closer to him. So with the children all around him, he asked a tough question.
POPE FRANCIS
Why does a child suffer? No, there is no answer. There's only serving the suffering child and looking for the Father of everything to do something.
There have been many special moments like this one when some children brought the Pope a bouquet of flowers or when a little girl gave him a drawing. And this Saturday's meeting will have its own touching encounters.
Around 3,000 people from the hospital will meet with Pope Francis to mark the 100th anniversary of the hospital being donated to the Vatican.
The Pope will be presented with a basket filled with notes written by children and young people hospitalized in the different branches of the Bambino Gesù.
The front rows of the Paul VI Audience Hall will be reserved for about 200 children and their parents. Among them will be patients from countries at war, such as Ukraine and Gaza.
All of them have been admitted to the hospital to receive the medical treatment they were unable to get in their home countries.
TIZIANO ONESTI
President, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital
We welcome everyone regardless of religion, of wealth. We provide healthcare for all children in a special way but here the door is always open for everyone. And we consider that the Bambino Gesù carries out a whole international activity that is very important, which then concretely expresses the mission of the Church in this sense.
The Bambino Gesù was the first pediatric hospital founded in Italy. Today, about 300 patients have been admitted on a humanitarian basis.
CA
TR: KG
