In addition to visits to the parishes of Rome (there were more than 300 of them, so he managed to visit almost all of them) there were meetings with priests, Corpus Christi processions, prayer on the Spanish Square for the celebration of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Te Deum at the end of the year, and periodic meetings with representatives of the authorities. This way, day after day, the Pope penetrated ever deeper into the realities of Rome: he learned about its religious, spiritual, but also social, cultural and political aspects. He condemned the progressive process of de Christianization and the gradual decline of human dignity and the city itself. "There are places that resembles the 3rd World” - he once exclaimed, moved by what he saw on the outskirts of the city.
One Sunday, he went to the St. Paul from the Cross Parish and discovered what is known in Rome as the Serpentone, the great serpent. It's a long, almost kilometer-long structure in which thousands of people are growing up without social care, surrounded by violence and drugs to the point that even the police did not have the courage to intervene there.
The Holy Father was moved. He asked how you could live like this. He fled in irony, talking to a joyous, happy crowd. At the time of his farewell, he said again to these people, "To you, the people of this..." – he hung his voice looking for a suitable expression, and then he said - "... this arch-building."
With the consent of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz - "Testimony".
TBA marketing communication Publishing House. Warsaw 2007
