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On the afternoon of July 31, 2024, Pope Francis visited the “Luna Park di Ostia," an amusement park in Ostia, the seaside area close to Rome, to meet with the amusement park workers and circus performers, the Holy See Press Office announced.
This group is accompanied spiritually by a French nun belonging to the Little Sisters of Jesus, Geneviève Jeanningros, who also cares for people from the LGBT community in Rome.
Despite the high heat being felt in Rome, Pope Francis took advantage of the last day of July, usually the month where he is on summer break, to travel by car to the amusement park in Ostia, just under 40km (around 28 miles) southwest of the Vatican. There, the Pontiff was warmly welcomed by the community.
“The Holy Father blessed a statue of Our Lady, Patroness of the Traveling Show and Circus, and greeted the families and children present,” the Press Office’s statement said. Then, after watching some demonstrations by circus performers, he had a chance to chat with some of the families belonging to this community.
A French nun appreciated by the Pope
At his side during this visit was Sister Jeanningros, who the Pontiff has nicknamed "l'enfant terrible," as reported by Vatican News on June 5. The term literally translates as "terrible infant," but it refers to people who work in unconventional ways or "stir things up"; we could say it's another way of expressing a favorite exhortation of the Pope's: "Hagan lio."
At the time of the Vatican News report, she had come to attend a general audience with a group of people from the LGBTQ+ community, including people with homosexual tendencies and expressing themselves as transgender, to whom she has provided daily spiritual support for over 56 years.
The Pontiff has known this frail, white-haired nun personally for a long time. Indeed, her aunt, Sister Léonie Duquet, was assassinated by the Argentine dictatorship in 1977 while he was provincial of the Jesuits.
Since his election as Pope, Francis has met the nun on numerous occasions: He visited the Luna Park in May 2015, and has met with people of transsexual and homosexual orientation from the nearby parish of Torvaianica, where Sister Jeanningros works, at the Vatican. When this group of people, who often practice prostitution, were left destitute during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the Pope also came to their financial aid at the nun’s request.
