Around 15,000 people gathered in the Piazza Calipari in Acerra, Campania, to welcome Pope Leo XIV on Saturday, as he arrived to offer comfort to locals in the region known as the Terra dei Fuochi, or land of fires, a vast area in southern Italy devastated by decades of illegal dumping, burying and burning of waste.
The pontiff, greeted on his arrival by Undersecretary to the Prime Minister’s Office Alfredo Mantovano, chose to devote the first moments of the day to those left outside the Cathedral due to overcrowding, before moving inside.
