“I went to Santa Marta on Tuesday evening to see the Pope for the last time. I cried a lot and I still have the heart in pieces now. It was, indeed it is, because I like to talk about him in the present, the saint of the last, of the marginalized, of those who have no voice. Now from the sky he can pray even more intensely for his beloved poor and for all of us. Francesco was the pope of courage because he gave me, and I believe many other people like me, the courage and strength to look inside and decide for the good by tending their hand to those who suffer or is in difficulty. This is the keystone of his figure and his pontificate ».
Vincenzo Staiano of letters, in the province of Naples, became famous as the “Pope’s pizza chef”: “But no, he calls me the” pizza chef of the poor “on the pope’s mandate,” he says while he recalls his link with Francesco started on September 4, 2016, the day of the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
How did Francesco met?
«One day he calls me his alms, the Polish cardinal Konrad Krajewski, to tell me that the Pope wanted to offer pizza to his poor. I gladly accepted the invitation ».
What happened later?
“The day of the canonization of Mother Teresa arrival in the Vatican, I place five wood -fired ovens next to the Nervi classroom and I start to churn out pizzas for over two thousand poor, homeless and indigently invited for lunch by Bergoglio and assisted in various dormitories of Rome and Italy by the missionaries of Charity, the religious order founded by Mother Teresa”.
What memory does it have of that day?
“He changed my life. At the end of the Mass, after the tour in St. Peter’s Square in the sun to greet the faithful, the Pope came to greet us despite being very tired. He smiled like a child, fun. He started eating the pizza with us and then in the end he thanked us ».
What pizza did he like?
“He told me that he was fond of Margherita and that when he was in Buenos Aires he often ate it. I replied that mine was better and he laughed. “
The pope’s birthday cake candle lit by Vincenzo Staiano in the sanctuary of the Madonna di Pompeii
Why does he say that that meeting changed his life?
«It made me understand the beauty of loving and feeling the joy of donating, of doing something for the last, for the guys held, for the poor, was a continuous stimulus. That day he said to me: “Bravo, for what you did. Go ahead like this, with you is your Pope”. ”
Did he continue after that lunch?
“Of course, indeed it was a crescendo. I brought the mobile ovens I brought them to Norcia to offer pizza to the earthquake victims, in Lourdes for the sick, in Naples for the Christmas lunch offered to the poor by the diocesan Caritas, with the foundation ‘A voice of and creatures by Don Luigi Merola with whom we created a “school”, the white arts laboratory, to teach the profession of pizza chefs to the stolen children of the street, driven out of the school or with parents in prison, until last year in Piazza Santi Apostoli in Rome for the world day of children. And then, from 2017, for another special occasion ».
Which?
«Every year, on December 17, I organized the Pope’s birthday party together with the children assisted by the Pediatric Dispensary of Santa Marta. It was a sober party, as he wanted, but very beautiful and participatory. In addition to the pizzas ovens, I brought my city as letters, the candle to put on the cake and blow the pontiff. After the party, I took that candle and in returning home I stopped in Pompeii to turn it on in front of the Madonna del Rosario on the main altar to pray for Francesco, as he always asked us. It is a memory that I keep with great affection and that now that there is no longer it makes me move very much ».
Will he participate in the funeral?
«Yes, as a gentleman of his holiness entrusted to the antechamber. The Pope wanted to be awarded this honor on 5 October which has a particular meaning, as if to say that too, a simple pizza chef, I was admitted to the circle of his collaborators. I will serve on the churchyard of St. Peter’s Square to welcome foreign delegations with the authorities and the various heads of state and government ».
