The Montfort family meets Leo XIV
ROME, Italy – The General audience on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 was an opportunity for the Montfortian Family to meet Pope Leo XIV, who, in his brief greeting, encouraged them “to be a sign of hope for all those who thirst for God, his truth and his peace.”
Present were Father Yoseph Putra Dwi Darma WATUN, SMM, the Superior General and the General Councilors: Father Marco PASINATO SMM, Father Jesús Leopoldo CUCHO PUCHURI, SMM and Father Prem KUMAR, SMM. During the brief meeting with the Holy Father, they gave him the Complete Works in Spanish and the Montfortian March t-shirt with the CD on the hymns of Montfort.
Also present were the 55 participants of the 43rd edition of the "Marche Montfortaine" who this year wanted to retrace the places travelled by Montfort in 1706 from Loreto to Rome. This annual experience takes its roots a few weeks before the death of Saint Louis Marie de Montfort (1673-1716), when he implored God to make a gift of abandoned missionary saints to Providence and Wisdom through the intercession of Mary. In 1716 for the first time, 33 penitents made this pilgrimage, two by two, from Saint-Pompain to Notre-Dame des Ardilliers.
The meeting with the Holy Father was requested to commemorate the 320 years of Montfort's pilgrimage to Rome, which represented a true act of obedience to the Church. Indeed, the audience of Pope Clement XI clarified his mission and shaped the last ten years of his life, sent by the Pontiff himself as an “apostolic missionary”.
Brother Prudence SHIRUBUTE, SG, member of the Montfort Brothers of Saint-Gabriel working in Malawi and participant in the International Montfort Formation (FIM), also present in San Pietro, expressed his joy after shaking the hand of Pope Leo XIV: “May I die singing like Simeon! My heart is overflowing with joy. I didn't expect it. Wisdom allowed Pope Leo XIV to shake the hand of me, a simple religious man. After dinner, I will go to the chapel to thank the Virgin Mary,” he said in a brief interview.
Also present were seminarians and Montfortian aspirants from Italy, as well as priests from the Province of Italy and the Generalate.
Montfort Communication - Rome
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