Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is making a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi this Saturday, celebrating a historic decision to restore his feast day, October 4, as a national holiday in Italy.
The move, approved almost unanimously by the Italian Parliament and signed into law this week, reinstates the feast of the “Poverello” — the humble friar whose life of radical poverty and love for creation helped renew the Church and inspire Western civilization. The feast had been removed as a national holiday fifty years ago.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Meloni is visiting the Basilica of St. Francis at 10 a.m. on Saturday, joining the faithful gathered for the saint’s liturgical feast. Official program (in Italian)
“I welcome with joy and satisfaction the news of the Senate’s final approval of the bill reintroducing, after fifty years, October 4, the day on which we celebrate St. Francis, the patron saint of Italy, as a national holiday,” Meloni said in a statement.
“The Government has wholeheartedly supported the proposal, which took up the appeal launched a year ago by poet Davide Rondoni, president of the National Committee for the Celebrations of the Eighth Centenary of the Death of the Poverello of Assisi.”
Meloni emphasized that the near-unanimous, bipartisan approval of the law “is an important sign of unity around one of the most iconic and distinctive figures of our national identity, a saint beloved by all Italians and in whom all Italians can recognize themselves.”
“The national holiday,” she said, “will be an opportunity to celebrate an extraordinary man and to remind us, each year, who we are and what unites us profoundly.”
The measure will take effect in 2026, the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’s death in 1226. That jubilee year is expected to draw millions of pilgrims to Assisi and other Franciscan sites, as Italy and the Church prepare to honor one of the most influential saints in Christian history.
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