Pope Francis welcomes giant puppet to Vatican

CNA Staff   By CNA Staff

Pope Francis greets children in the San Damaso Courtyard during the puppet Little Amal’s visit to the Vatican, Sept. 10, 2021. / Vatican Media.

Vatican City, Sep 10, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis welcomed a giant puppet symbolizing unaccompanied refugee children to the Vatican on Friday.

The 11-foot-tall puppet, called Little Amal, arrived in St. Peter’s Square on the morning of Sept. 10 on a journey from Gaziantep, near the border between Turkey and Syria, to Manchester, England.

Cardinal Michael Czerny with the puppet Little Amal in St. Peter’s Square, Sept. 10, 2021. Vatican Media.
Cardinal Michael Czerny with the puppet Little Amal in St. Peter’s Square, Sept. 10, 2021. Vatican Media.

The puppet, blinking and waving its arms, was greeted by the Vatican Cardinal Michael Czerny beside the bronze sculpture “Angels Unawares,” which depicts migrants huddled together on a raft and was unveiled in the square in 2019.

Czerny, under-secretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, was joined by Bishop Benoni Ambăruş, a Romania-born auxiliary bishop of Rome diocese responsible for the pastoral care of migrants.

Vatican Media.
Vatican Media.

“Amal is big and beautiful, and meeting her is a pleasure,” Czerny told Vatican News. “But she immediately reminds us that meeting vulnerable migrants, insecure workers, and asylum seekers in our midst requires more than just a glance.”

“Each of them, with their own baggage of suffering and dreams, needs and talents, is waiting for us to open our ears, our minds, and our hearts, as well as our eyes, and stretch out our hands.”

Vatican Media.
Vatican Media.

The puppet, whose journey is known as “The Walk,” proceeded to the San Damaso Courtyard of the Apostolic Palace, where it encountered the pope and brightly dressed children.

The children are participants in an event known as the “March of Welcome,” marking the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which falls this year on Sept. 26.

Vatican Media.
Vatican Media.

In May, Pope Francis released his 2021 message marking the annual commemoration, which Pope Pius X instituted in 1914.

Photographs issued by the Vatican showed the pope waving to the children, greeting them individually, and giving them his blessing.

Vatican Media.
Vatican Media.

“The pope invited them to play and he spent some time in the courtyard watching them and asking them to pray for him too,” reported Vatican News, which said that the event also included a kite-building workshop.

The welfare of migrants and refugees has been one of Pope Francis’ top priorities since his election in 2013. His first trip outside Rome as pope, in July of that year, was to Italy’s migrant island of Lampedusa.

Earlier this week, the pope met with recent arrivals from Afghanistan after a documentary about his life and teaching was screened at the Vatican.

Vatican Media.
Vatican Media.

Evgeny Afineevsky, the film’s director, told the online news site Deadline: “When the movie finished [the pope] was downstairs waiting for them. He wanted to meet everybody and greet everybody…”

Vatican Media.
Vatican Media.

“He is a human being who cherishes being close to the people, cherishes the moment he can spread love, joy in their lives — not easy lives. And he always remembers that he can be in their place [as a refugee]. He said it many, many times: ‘It can be you or me.’”

He added: “He’s somebody who is trying to bring light to their plight. He’s trying to bring the spotlight of the media towards them and to show to the world how important it is to help them, integrate them.”

After his Sunday Angelus on Sept. 5, Pope Francis urged countries to offer refuge to people fleeing Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover and withdrawal of U.S. and other forces.

“In these troubled times that see Afghans seeking refuge, I pray for the most vulnerable among them. I pray that many countries will welcome and protect those seeking a new life. I pray also for the internally displaced persons and that they may receive assistance and the necessary protection,” the pope said.

Vatican Media.
Vatican Media.

“May young Afghans receive education, an essential good for human development. And may all Afghans, whether at home, in transit, or in host countries, live with dignity, in peace and fraternity with their neighbors.”

“The Walk” is a collaboration between the theater group Good Chance, founded in a refugee camp in Calais, France, in 2015, and the South African Handspring Puppet Company, which created the puppets for the acclaimed play “War Horse.”

Little Amal, made from cane and carbon fiber and operated by four puppeteers, is being taken on an almost 5,000-mile journey from Turkey to the U.K., via Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium to raise awareness of the plight of young refugees.

Vatican Media.
Vatican Media.

Amal, a nine-year-old Syrian refugee child, first featured as a character in Good Chance’s play “The Jungle,” representing the hundreds of unaccompanied minors in the Calais camp.


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Catholic News Agency 11941 Articles
Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

2 Comments

  1. First glance I thought, Oh no! Another idolatry. Closer glance it has a benevolent meaning attached. Amal, if anyone recalls, resembles Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, the wise men seeking the Christ child. Amahl, a crippled young boy. This giant Amal, the invention of a refugee camp, is a Syrian girl who has no problem getting around having made the circuit of European nations drawing attention to the refugee plight. She represents the unaccompanied vulnerable female child, often a victim. Certainly a compassionate theme. Although reality has it that islamic migration hasn’t at all benefited a tottering Catholic Europe. And Amal’s features are more adult than child, the eyes eerie. Probably, I’m still suffering the effects of Pachamamma hangover. As a point of interest marionette’s are controlled by strings, puppets moved by a puppeteer. This puppet is controlled by someone within, visibly apparent 7th photo down. It can waive its arms, move its head, Francis seen waiving back. Or is Amal waiving back? Now here’s the deal. Considering Pope Francis’ advocacy for migration could he be the master puppeteer?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*