The pope stepped out of the car into a wall of outstretched hands and glowing smartphone screens. On the square before the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, thousands of young people pressed against the barriers, their cheers echoing off the honey-coloured stone. Leo XIV moved slowly along the line, shaking hands, blessing babies held up by mothers, and leaning into embraces from teenagers who would later describe the moment as a personal encounter rather than a distant spectacle. The scene, captured in a cascade of digital images, marked the beginning of his second visit to Assisi since November 2025.

Inside the basilica, built around the tiny chapel where Francis of Assisi founded his order and died in 1226, the pope addressed the 'GO! Franciscan Youth Meeting 2026'. The gathering drew participants aged 18 to 33 from across Europe, both believers and non-believers. Responding to questions from three of them – including a young woman from Zagreb who spoke of the difficulty of finding reference points in a rapidly changing world – Leo XIV urged them to 'free yourselves from the culture of power and build a civilisation of love'. He reminded them that for centuries the Franciscans had fostered dialogue and peaceful coexistence among Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims, and warned that Christians would increasingly be called to become 'artisans of peace within societies tempted to place religion at the service of competing identities'.

The setting itself carried the weight of that history. The basilica encloses the Porziuncola, the small church where St Francis renounced his wealth and devoted himself to the poor. This year Assisi is hosting celebrations for the eighth centenary of the saint's death, and the pope's decision to celebrate Mass directly in front of the Porziuncola was, according to the Franciscan province, without precedent in recent centuries. 'We have no record of a Eucharistic celebration presided over by a Roman Pontiff in the Porziuncola Basilica in the last centuries,' the Seraphic Province of St Francis noted.

In his homily, Leo XIV returned to the figure of Francis, telling the young crowd that the saint still attracts 'because of his magnificent humanity, which led him to abandon the paths already traced so that a new one might open, more consistent with the journey of Jesus'. He called on them to learn from Francis 'evangelical radicality, which is the opposite of fundamentalism: it does not make one blind and violent, but sensitive, attentive, and therefore humble, welcoming towards all'. Earlier, the provincial minister of the Friars Minor of Umbria and Sardinia, Fr Marco Vianelli, had welcomed the pope by describing how the young participants had allowed themselves to be provoked by witnesses on themes of peace, marginality, identity, mission, economy and beauty, 'seeking ways to get involved and not remain passive spectators'.

After the encounter, the pope greeted each friar of the Franciscan community individually in the cloister. Then, before the small church that has drawn pilgrims for eight centuries, he celebrated Mass on the feast of the Transfiguration. The image of the pontiff standing at that modest altar, framed by the ancient stones of the Porziuncola, offered a quiet counterpoint to the morning's exuberant crowd – a reminder that the 'authentic fraternity' invoked by the Franciscans still finds its most enduring expression in the simplest of places.