(EFE) – Pope Francis greeted a man dressed as Spiderman this morning in the general audience with the faithful, which takes place every Wednesday in the courtyard of San Dámaso of the Vatican.
The superhero gave the pontiff his mask and revealed his identity: Mattia Villardita, a 28-year-old Italian founder of “Supereroincorsia” (“Superheroes in the room”, in Spanish), an association of volunteers who dress up as famous comic book characters to visit children admitted to hospitals, as reported by the news portal Vatican News.
Here, the Pope’s security personnel knew what the Peter Parker fanatic would do, who took a rosary delivered by the Supreme Pontiff.
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Villardita will later participate, at the initiative of the Vatican Public Security Inspectorate, in the pediatrics of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome with the musical band of the Italian State Police to “get a smile from the little ones who are in the hospital”.
The first time he put on the spider-man costume was four years ago, motivated by his own experience, since he has suffered from a congenital disease since he was a child and would have “loved to see Spiderman enter through the window ”the times he was admitted as a child.
At this time, in addition to having met Pope Francis today, andhe young Italian has been recognized with the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, presented to him last year by the president, Sergio Mattarella, for the “altruism and imaginative initiatives with which he contributes to alleviate the suffering of the hospital’s youngest patients.”
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The general audiences of the highest authority of the Church were interrupted by the pandemic since last October, but they resumed on May 12 in the courtyard of San Dámaso, inside the Apostolic Palace, and not in St. Peter’s Square, with the aim of reducing the number of participants and the risk of contagion.
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