Pope Leo XIV by Catholic Church England and Wales (Mazur/cbcew.org.uk) / Flickr
Amid welcoming more than one million young people gathered in Rome for the Jubilee of Youth, Pope Leo XIV went quietly to the Vatican’s children’s hospital to visit a Spanish teen pilgrim who had come for the Jubilee but was hospitalized with severe lymphoma, according to an Aug. 5 Vatican News report.
Fifteen-year-old Ignacio Gonzálvez had traveled from Murcia, Spain, to Rome for the Jubilee of Youth, but on Aug. 1 suffered chest pain that caused him to collapse. He remains sedated at the Bambio Gesù and “appears to be in his final hours,” according to the report.
Gonzálvez’s parents, and his older brother and sister, were praying in the hospital’s intensive care unit for him — as they had been unceasingly for days — when Pope Leo arrived “unannounced” and prayed with them. According to Vatican News, Pope Leo prayed the Hail Mary and the Our Father with the family and spoke about the Gospel and eternal life.
Gonzálvez’s mother Carmen Gloria told Vatican News that the Pontiff “told us that this is a mystery and that, despite many things we don’t understand, we know that God is there and wants the best for everyone.”
“As a mother,” she said, “I saw Jesus Christ approach me and say, ‘You are not alone.’ That’s what the Pope’s presence at the hospital meant to me: confirmation that God has not abandoned us.”
Pope Leo “told us that the important thing is to do God’s will, that our true place is eternal life in heaven,” Gonzálvez’s father, Pedro Pablo, told Vatican News. “This comforted us, because we are people who try to live our faith and know it is the truth. And in times of such suffering, hearing the Pope come and give us such a word is… the best thing that could have happened to us.”
According to the outlet, Pope Leo spent about half an hour with the family. Afterward he met with other patients in the ward and hospital staff.
Gonzálvez’s brother, Pedro Pablo Jr., said that Pope Leo’s visit was a source of great consolation.
“Having such a profound sign as the Holy Father’s visit has given me great peace, especially for my mother; it has united us as a family in faith,” he said. “It’s the fruit of prayer, I’m sure.”
He later recounted that Pope Leo listened attentively to the family, and “he was truly concerned, he gave me the feeling of someone who truly understood the situation and the pain we are experiencing. Great empathy.”
According to the report, at the Vigil of the Jubilee of Young People, Pope Leo asked the hundreds of thousands present to pray for Gonzálvez.
