Pope Francis received an unexpected visit from Spiderman

Another type of participant approached the general public of the dad Francisco in the Vatican: Spider Man.

A man in a full, tight, red, black and blue costume of the comic book and movie character, including his beanie, sat in the public VIP section in the San Damaso courtyard in the Vatican.

He sat silently next to a black robed priest who didn’t seem fazed by the colorful figure with big white eyes sitting next to him.

The man behind the mask turned out to be Mattia Villardita, 27 years old, founder of “Superhero race“(” Superheroes en la sala “, in Spanish), an association of volunteers who dress up as famous cartoon characters to visit children admitted to hospitals, according to the news portal Vatican News.

At the end of the audience, he was introduced to the Pope and gave the Pontiff a Spider-Man mask. Francisco in turn gave him a rosary and thanked him for the work he does with the children.

Last year the Italian president Sergio Mattarella He presented Villardita with the Merit Award for “altruism and the ingenious initiatives with which it contributes to alleviating the suffering of the youngest hospitalized patients”.

The young man confessed that he dresses as Spiderman “To make the little ones who are in the hospital smile, I do it because I have a congenital disease and I spent 19 years at the Gaslini hospital in Genoa ”. He also added that while he spent his hospitalizations alone in the hospital, “I really wish I had seen Spider-Man come in through my bedroom window.”

Mattia has been visiting and entertaining sick children for 4 years. When the coronavirus pandemic appeared and with it the establishment of quarantine, he did not interrupt his work at any time. He started making video calls so he could communicate with the children.

Villardita will go this afternoon, at the initiative of the Vatican Public Security Inspectorate, to the pediatric service of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome with the fanfare of the Italian State Police to “make the little ones smile. the hospital ”.

“The real superheroes are the children who are in pain and their neighbors who are fighting so hopefully,” Mattia said.

Both men can understand that, as Spiderman puts it, “with great power comes great responsibility.”

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