Pope receives missionaries during summer retreat

Pope Leo XIV received eight religious and missionary communities in Castel Gandolfo this Saturday, where he is spending a few days of rest, and encouraged them “to think big.”

The leader of the Roman church asked people to think "big, as unique pieces of a project that surpasses all expectations, that of salvation," he said, as quoted by the news agency Efe.

The meeting was attended by participants from the general chapters of eight religious institutes, organized in Rome by the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions.

The audience took place in the town of Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, where Leo XIV spent a few days of vacation and rest until July 20, resuming the tradition of traveling to this town, which had been interrupted during the almost 13 years of Francis' pontificate.

The American and Peruvian Pope received the nuns and religious in the central courtyard of the Papal Palace, where church leaders no longer reside because it has since been converted into a museum.

On Sunday, Leo XIV will celebrate his first public Mass in the church of San Tommaso da Villanova and will then preside over the Angelus prayer in Liberty Square, in the center of Castel Gandolfo, Efe reports.