Every day over 100 kilos of letters addressed to Pope Leo XIV arrive at the Vatican: messages of faith, hope and prayer from all over the world
Postcards, letters, greeting cards. But also handwritten sheets, sometimes only a few lines imbued with emotion. It is a continuous and unstoppable flow that every day reaches Pope Leo XIV, elected last May 8.
Since its election, the new pontiff has started to receive an impressive amount of correspondence from every corner of the planet. The first joint of this extraordinary epistolary journey is the sorting center of Poste Italiane in Rome Fiumicino, where about 100 kilos of mail destined for the Vatican arrive every day.
The letters come from everywhere: crowded metropolises, small remote villages, hospitals, schools. And often the senders are children. It doesn’t matter how precise the address is: even a simple indication as “Pope Leo XIV, Vatican” It is sufficient for the letter to arrive at your destination. Each envelope finds its own way.
The operators of Poste Italiane deal with this correspondence with particular care and respectfully aware of the profound meaning that it contains. Although they are not open, the letters clearly transmit their symbolic content: there is always a voice that seeks listening, a silent prayer, a thought aimed at the one who, today, represents a spiritual reference point for millions of people in the world.
