Pope Francis has lunch with Rome’s poor who tell him ‘what they expect from the Church’

Vatican City, Oct 11, 2023 / 10:00 am

Pope Francis dined with a group of Rome’s poor at his Vatican residence on Tuesday during the second week of the Synod on Synodality.

Like the synod assembly participants, the lunch guests were asked “what they expect from the Church,” Paolo Ruffini, president of the synod’s Commission for Information, told journalists Oct. 11.

“Their answer, it was said, was ‘love, only love,’” Ruffini said.

The Vatican communications official called the lunch “a little ‘circolo minore’ in Casa Santa Marta.” Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the pope’s almoner, was also present for the meal.