Vatican City, Mar 3, 2018 / 03:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When pilgrims in the Eternal City hope to get an up-close view of the pope, or even shake his hand, they are usually advised to arrive at the Vatican early, to sit next to the barrier and, most importantly, to find a baby.
Brian and Kelle Smith, whose youngest son Bobby recently made his debut on the Pope’s Instagram account, only needed the first two suggestions. They’d come prepared with the baby.
Like many pilgrims who visit Rome, on Wednesday morning they woke up early, gathered their six children and braved the rain and long security lines before making in into the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall for Pope Francis’ Feb. 28 general audience.
Almost as soon as he entered the hall, Francis saw the family and made a beeline to the kids, giving each of them a blessing and patting Bobby, 2, on the cheeks. The toddler, perched on the barrier, has his eyes fixed on the Pope’s pectoral cross.
Instead of continuing down the line, Francis paused when he saw Bobby pointing to his chest, and stepped closer, allowing the boy to trace his finger along the chain holding his pectoral cross.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”><a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PopeFrancis?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#PopeFrancis</a> greets a young child at today’s audience who wants to get a better look at the Cross he wears. <a href=”https://t.co/vXH0u7UHqv”>pic.twitter.com/vXH0u7UHqv</a></p>— Mary Shovlain (@maryshovlain) <a href=”https://twitter.com/maryshovlain/status/968773182936289280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Video footage of the encounter shows the Pope flashing a big smile and giving Bobby a final pat on the cheek before moving down the line of pilgrims.
Clips of the interaction immediately went up on Twitter, and later that day a close-up of the Bobby touching Francis’ cross went up on the Pope’s Instagram account, Franciscus.
In a March 2 interview with CNA, Brian Smith, the boy’s father, said it was a special moment for the family, “and Pope Francis was great, he was engaging with [Bobby].”
Smith said his son had been waving at the Pope as he walked in, “and he’s got the curly blonde hair, so I guess he caught Pope Francis’ eye.”
Francis, he said, “was very warm, and he spent a lot of time with the kids, really engaging with my youngest son.”
Though the interaction only lasted about 20 seconds, Smith was moved by the amount of time Pope Francis spent with them. “He’s the Pope, he’s the leader of our Church, of a billion Catholics, and he came and spent that amount of time with us when thousands of people were there to see him.”
During the brief encounter both the Pope and Bobby were talking with each other, Francis spoke in Italian and Bobby in baby-babble. However, with the noise and the excitement of the moment, Smith said he couldn’t make out what either was trying to say.
“It all seemed to happen so fast,” he said, noting that Francis “came and touched all six of the kids’ heads and gave them all a blessing, which was great.”
The family left Rome Thursday night and returned to Germany, where Smith is stationed with the U.S. military. They didn’t know about the Pope’s Instagram post until the next day, when a friend sent them a link to the post on Facebook.
“It was a pretty neat photo, the photographer did a great job capturing it,” he said. “It was pretty meaningful.”
<blockquote class=”instagram-media” data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink=”https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfvu1NMDWx-/” data-instgrm-version=”8″ style=” background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% – 2px); width:calc(100% – 2px);”><div style=”padding:8px;”> <div style=” background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:50.0% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;”> <div style=” background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5/P8/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wOHiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GPT6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90GSy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;”></div></div> <p style=” margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;”> <a href=”https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfvu1NMDWx-/” style=” color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;” target=”_blank”>#GeneralAudience</a></p> <p style=” color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;”>A post shared by <a href=”https://www.instagram.com/franciscus/” style=” color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;” target=”_blank”> Pope Francis</a> (@franciscus) on <time style=” font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;” datetime=”2018-02-28T15:42:59+00:00″>Feb 28, 2018 at 7:42am PST</time></p></div></blockquote> <script async defer src=”//www.instagram.com/embed.js”></script>
After living in Germany for two years, the family is set to return to the United States in six months, and had wanted to visit Rome one last time before going back.
“We basically just went to Rome to see the Pope,” Smith said, explaining that they had initially planned to attend the general audience in January while visiting a friend in Italy, but had to cancel the Rome portion of the trip because the Pope was in South America.
However, it wasn’t their first time meeting the Vicar of Christ. Though it was their first interaction with Pope Francis, Brian, Kelle and their three oldest children met Benedict XVI during his Mass for Pentecost in 2010.
“One thing about both of them is that popes love babies,” he said, recalling that as soon as Benedict entered St. Peter’s Basilica “he saw the children and he just ignored everybody else and came for the kids and blessed them.”
“So my older three kids don’t have an excuse,” he joked, “because they’ve been blessed by two popes.”
Smith said that while he is excited to return to his home in Texas for a few years, he has enjoyed living in Europe, where, despite a general decline in the practice of the Christian faith, “there’s still so many great sites…Pretty much all of modern Europe is based on 1,000 years of the Church being here. So it’s great.”
Highlights of their time in Europe have included visits to Fatima, Orvieto and Lourdes, where Smith participated in the annual military pilgrimage to the shrine, as well as many other places where saints are buried.
However, Smith said perhaps the biggest highlight was having his son Bobby – who is named after Jesuit St. Robert Bellarmine – baptized by a Jesuit priest he knows during Mass celebrated at the saint’s tomb in Rome.
“This has been a great posting for us,” he said, “because you hear about things but America is not really a Catholic country, so it’s great to be able to see all of these pilgrimage places, it’s a great blessing.”
[…]
When it come to fasting and prayer, Muslims are second to none. They pray for themselves and pray for those of us in need of prayers. Long live their love for prayer.
Oh good for you. How do you know what they pray for, or to who?
Well they pray to the God of Abraham & they’ve prayed for my grandchild who was ill. His mother & I appreciated that very much.
Apart from the God of Abraham, we may part ways on a number of issues but that much we hold in common as children of Abraham
This is sugar coating something that never should have been allowed to happen. What next? A room for Satanists to pray? No. Just no. Ford doesn’t open a room at their headquarters library for GM to gather.
What about thou shall not have false God’s before me?
Would they allow a Christian prayer room at Masjid al-Haram or Al Aqsa?
Possibly yes…in the sense that in both cases—the Vatican Library (and the entire Vatican?) and the Christian prayer room—Christianity is subordinated and annexed to the central Islamic worldview… the madrassa! Jihad by another name…
Huh?
They “ rate this claim true, with important context”?
What context?
That the Muslim prayer room is actually a room where Muslims pray?
That the Muslim prayer room in the Vatican is actually in the Vatican Library?
I don’t see how the “important context” matters much.
The Vatican established a prayer room for Muslims. Period.
Now, I think a meaningful bit of context might be that Muslim fundamentalists are martyring Christians all around the world, including some ten thousand in this year alone in Nigeria.
The prayer room war. Will the Vatican pose no objection to a mosque and minaret calling Muslims to prayer day and night adjacent to Vatican City?
Cardinal Gerhard Muller alleged that the prayer room request was an encroachment, a statement that infers Islam is the superior faith. As a matter of arguable evidence we increasingly find mosques and minarets all over Europe, whereas we don’t find Muslim nations grading Christians ‘prayer spaces’ like churches. And if they do they’re subject to atrocities.
As an opinion it seems CNA’s Daniel Payne’s view is acceptable, that the request was made by Muslim scholars studying at the Apostolic library, and it should be reserved solely for them. A refusal aside from the politics would seem petty. It can also be viewed as an indication of Catholic magnanimity.
Islam has a 13 plus century history from which we can make a reasonably accurate assessment of its intent and nature.
It has always been imperial, martial and supercedent.
Muslims have already taken over parts of Michigan. About three months ago, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud told local resident Edward “Ted” Barham, a Christian, that he was “not welcome” in the city after Barham raised concerns about new street signs honoring Arab American News publisher Osama Siblani.
Per Fox news: Christian minister Edward “Ted” Barham says he will not respond with hate after Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud told him he was “not welcome” during a heated city council exchange over a controversial honorary street sign naming that went viral.
In a new interview with Fox News Digital, Barham said the moment has only strengthened his resolve to speak out about freedom of speech and freedom of faith.
“I did not respond to the mayor with hate. I said, God bless you,” Barham said, adding that he takes seriously Jesus’ command to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you.” He said the incident was not isolated, pointing to earlier clashes with city officials over his public ministry.
Barham objected at the Sept. 9 council meeting to street signs honoring controversial Arab American News publisher Osama Siblani.
DEARBORN’S MUSLIM MAYOR TELLS CHRISTIAN HE’S ‘NOT WELCOME’…….
..the attack on free speech is very troubling but representative of the left’s attitude.
it seems the attitude here is that “hit the road Jack, and don’t come back”
The US, as well as European nations, require a cultural assimilation mandate for immigrants. Creating virtual alien nations within a host nation is antithetical to social integration and justice. Our Church, and the European Union have encouraged this indiscriminate open border policy.
Early in Francis’ Papacy, there was a PEP (Papal Excuse Patrol) ready to qualify the Pope’s innumerable and intemperate gaffes. Looks like a new squad is forming.
This situation reflects two very different impulses: on one hand, a kind of tribal reflex that Christians should avoid, and on the other, a legitimate concern rooted in history, prudence, and discernment — virtues the Christian tradition actually demands.
A sober reading of Islamic history makes one thing clear: for many of its political and religious movements, expansion has not been incidental but central. Across centuries, Islamic empires advanced not through dialogue but through territorial acquisition, often justified as a religious duty. That historical pattern isn’t speculation; it’s documented reality.
This is why the Vatican’s decision matters. Symbolically and strategically, granting even a small foothold in Rome carries weight far beyond the physical space involved. For over a millennium, Rome has been viewed by various Islamic powers as a coveted prize — not for coexistence, but for eventual dominance. In many interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence, once land is claimed for Islam, it is considered permanently Islamic territory, and there is a religious obligation to defend and expand it.
Christians view the world through the lens of Christ — a framework shaped by grace, reason, and moral restraint. But it is a mistake to assume that all others operate from the same moral or theological foundation. Prudence requires acknowledging that not every worldview reciprocates goodwill or interprets gestures of openness as invitations to peaceful coexistence.
Kindness is a Christian duty, but so is discernment. Extending goodwill does not obligate us to ignore historical patterns or the stated aims of ideological movements. Wisdom means recognizing that not every gesture of hospitality will be met with the same intentions.
Five times per day, special timing methods, call to prayer from a mosque somewhere, necessity of wudu, prayed aloud, facing Kasba/Mecca, Friday prayer “day of meeting” more elaborate including discussions “holiest/happiest day of the week”, sunni and shia pray differently/separate rooms, etc.
‘ The daily prayers are considered obligatory (fard) by many and they are performed at times determined essentially by the position of the Sun in the sky. Hence, salat times vary at different locations on the Earth. Wudu is needed for all of the prayers.
Some Muslims pray three times a day. ‘
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salah_times
In the Koran, Jesus is described as a prophet. Muslims also deny the resurrection and believe Jesus never died. They believe Christians are infidels who must be converted. They do not believe in the same God who sent his son to be crucified to save us. To put a Muslim prayer room in the Vatican was wrong whether they asked or not. I say this not in hate but in respect of for our lord.