At 57, Father Agnello Stoia has a unique mission: He's the pastor of St. Peter's Basilica. As such, he celebrates hundreds of baptisms and weddings for people from around the world, without technically having any parishioners in his territory.
This priest's parish is unique: It consists only of the church itself and the Square in front of it. Still, he performs hundreds of baptisms and dozens of weddings each year.
Before the death of Pope Francis and the election of Pope Leo XIV, we interviewed this Italian Franciscan who walks across the precious marble floors under Rome's most famous dome.
Agnello Stoia was born in Pagani, in the province of Salerno, south of Naples, and grew up in a large family. It was at the Franciscan convent in Nocera Inferiore that he felt his calling to religious life. After studying in Benevento and Rome, he was ordained a priest in 1993 and sent to the shrine of San Francesco a Folloni in Montella, in southern Italy.
He remained in the Apennine Mountains for 19 years before being appointed parish priest of Santi XII Apostoli in central Rome. During his eight years at that Franciscan church, he distinguished himself by welcoming around 100 people who had been evicted from a building in Cinecittà and were camping under the portico for nine months.
In 2021, he was appointed parish priest of St. Peter's Basilica, a little-known role established in the 16th century. The post was more clearly defined by John Paul II, who in 1991 created the Vicariate of the Vatican — now headed by Franciscan Cardinal Mauro Gambetti — comprising two parishes. The parish of St. Anne has jurisdiction over the entire Vatican City, with the exception of the area of St. Peter's Basilica, which is established as a parish in its own right.
A unique church
“Technically, I have no parishioners, since my parish has no territory outside the basilica and St. Peter's Square,” Father Stoia explains.
But the Franciscan pastor considers everyone who enters St. Peter's as his flock. “Thousands of people come every day, and I welcome everyone,” he tells I.MEDIA, smiling broadly between phone calls on his cell phone, which is ringing off the hook.
In his office decorated with paintings and Eastern icons, the bearded Franciscan has a busy schedule of appointments.
“It's always busy here,” he says before getting up and hurrying out to welcome an Orthodox colleague, who has arrived with a few parishioners. He leads them to the tomb of St. Peter, assuring the group of pilgrims, “You are at home here.”
Being the pastor of St. Peter's, the priest continues after the interruption, “is to be the pastor of a church that is unique in its kind.” St. Peter's Basilica, he emphasizes, is “above all a monument over the tomb of an apostle.”
“There’s no point in fighting this reality: the building was constructed as a cemetery monument, where popes and queens are buried,” he adds.
St. Peter's is also “a sanctuary where people from all over the world flock” to seek “special grace,” continues the parish priest, emphasizing the pilgrimage dimension that has been a fundamental part of the Vatican basilica since time immemorial.
“Some people, when they come to St. Peter's, are making the trip of a lifetime. They’ve worked hard to save up the money to pay for the trip,” says Father Stoia.
For him, “everything in the basilica must meet the pilgrim's need to find an atmosphere of prayer, to gather their thoughts, to go to confession, to attend Mass, to have the sacred objects they have purchased blessed, and to meet a priest.”
Nearly 400 baptisms per year
The parish priest of St. Peter's Basilica has no parochial vicars, but works with two Missionary Sisters of the Faith who are stationed at the parish reception desk. These religious, who are originally from Vietnam and Myanmar, welcome those who ask to celebrate a baptism or a wedding at St. Peter's. The numbers are significant.
“In 2024, we celebrated more than 390 baptisms and more than 90 weddings from many countries,” reports Father Stoia.
Anyone can request to celebrate these sacraments in the pope's basilica, which is ultimately the parish of the whole world, provided they give a reason for their request. This means a busy schedule for the parish priest. “Normally, you'll see me running around the basilica with a stole,” he jokes.
In addition to his regular duties, this year he has had to deal with all the requests related to the 2025 Jubilee. Father Stoia sometimes assists groups passing through the Holy Door or gives catechesis to pilgrims. “A beautiful pastoral life,” he concludes serenely. And now with all the events and visitors occasioned by the new pope, he's surely even busier ...
