A sweet welcome!This week, Pope Francis entrusted Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, with the task of bringing ice cream to migrants who had just arrived on Italian soil, according to a statement from the Holy See.
Far from “cooling their hearts,” quipped the Polish cardinal, this ice cream is “a sign of the pope’s tenderness” for migrants. For the papal almoner, “The hope is that they find here, in Italy, everywhere, a Christian and generous heart and that they might finally feel at home.”
With the ice cream, the Vatican official also brought the greeting and blessing of the pope. Then he had lunch with the hosts and the center’s managers.
After disembarking from an Italian Coast Guard ship, some of these migrants were temporarily accommodated in the Mondo migliore (“Better World”) center, in Rocca di Papa, a municipality southeast of Rome, near Castel Gandolfo. At the end of the week, they will leave the municipality to head to destinations determined by the Italian episcopal conference.
About 20,000 other ice cream cones were distributed the same day at different welcoming centers in the capital.
