Updated

Updated · thelettersfromleo.com · Aug 22

Pope Leo XIV Backs 17-Century San Marino Liberty Tradition, Rejecting Catholic Theocracy

Updated

Updated · thelettersfromleo.com · Aug 22

Pope Leo XIV Backs 17-Century San Marino Liberty Tradition, Rejecting Catholic Theocracy

Q: Why is Pope Leo XIV only the second pontiff in history to attend the massive Rimini Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples?

Pope Leo XIV is only the second pope to attend the Rimini Meeting because, despite the event’s size and influence, pontiffs have almost never appeared there in person. The annual Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples began in 1980, and St. John Paul II’s visit in 1982 remains the only previous papal participation. That rarity is partly explained by the character of the gathering. The Rimini Meeting, organized by Communion and Liberation, is not a Vatican event but a large Catholic-inspired cultural forum that brings together religious leaders, politicians, scholars, artists and people of other faiths or none. Popes have supported its themes of dialogue and friendship, but personal attendance has been exceptional rather than routine. The historical record in the material provided is clear: John Paul II attended during the Meeting in 1982, when it was only in its third year. Benedict XVI later visited Rimini and San Marino in 2011, but not during the Meeting, so his trip did not make him a papal participant in the event. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he had attended in 1990, but not as pope. Leo’s presence in 2026 therefore places him in a very small category. His visit reflects both the Meeting’s stature after more than four decades and its continuing alignment with themes the Vatican wants to emphasize—dialogue, peace, solidarity and encounter—while also underscoring the longstanding ties between the Church, Rimini and nearby San Marino.

Q: What secret World War II history connects the secluded Pennabilli nuns to Pope Leo XIV's highly anticipated pastoral tour?

The hidden wartime link is that the Augustinian nuns Pope Leo XIV plans to visit in Pennabilli once turned their monastery into a refuge during World War II. According to the Vatican’s published program and background material, the Monastery of St. Anthony of Padua sheltered two communities of religious women whom German forces intended to deport to Germany. The nuns also took in young girls from families displaced from nearby Rimini, effectively making the cloister a sanctuary from wartime persecution and upheaval. That history helps explain why the stop, though officially described as private, carries symbolic weight within Leo’s pastoral tour. It connects his visit not only to the Augustinian order he comes from, but also to a local story of Catholic resistance expressed through protection, hospitality and quiet courage during the war. There is also a personal institutional link. Before becoming pope, Robert Francis Prevost, as prior general of the Augustinians, approved in 2012 the transfer of four sisters from the Augustinian monastery of Lecceto in Siena to Pennabilli, reinforcing the community’s survival and significance. So Leo’s stop is tied both to the convent’s little-known wartime rescue role and to his own longstanding connection to the monastery.

3 articles · Updated · thelettersfromleo.com · Aug 22

Leo used a speech in 35,000-person San Marino to frame liberty as both political self-rule and protection of conscience, praising the republic’s democratic tradition rather than any model of confessional rule.
Quoting the founding ideal of “Libertas,” he said freedom requires defending “the spaces of conscience” and honored people who pay a personal price for refusing to betray their convictions.
Thomas More served as his central example — a statesman who defied a king’s demand — underscoring Leo’s claim that governors remain bound first to truth and God, not temporal power.
The message extends a pattern from Leo’s earlier Monaco visit and his San Marino praise for “good politics,” frustrating postliberal Catholic hopes that he would endorse a more theocratic vision.