Italian singer Laura Pausini met with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican and gifted him the only copy of an unreleased song in which she performs a part of St. Francis of Assisi's 'Canticle of the Creatures'.
The Italian artist attended the meeting dressed completely in black, accompanied by the Billboard Italia team and with a letter addressed to 'His Holiness Pope Leo', as can be seen in the photos published by the Holy See.
The meeting took place in a hall of the Vatican's Paul VI Hall. The Pope, with a smile, confessed to being a 'fan' of Laura Pausini since her debut at the Sanremo Festival in 1993 with the song 'La Solitudine', which catapulted her to worldwide fame.
'I've been your fan since the first Sanremo,' the pontiff revealed.
However, if he admires the Italian singer, her personal secretary, the young Peruvian priest Edgard Iván Rimaycuna, does so even more: 'he is the biggest fan, if not in the world, then at least in Latin America,' he declared.
'I feel super blessed,' the singer acknowledged in turn. She is very famous in the Hispanic world for her songs and versions in Spanish, a language in which she was able to speak with this Pope who spent much of his life as a missionary and bishop in Peru.
In the presence of Leo XIV, Pausini received the 'Global Icon' award from Billboard Italia for her 'talent and commitment to inspire and unite generations around the world,' the specialized magazine reported.
