Pope Francis celebrated his 85th birthday with a group of refugees whom he had helped to achieve asylum earlier this month in Italy. He had welcomed them to the Vatican on his birthday.
The Pope individually greeted the refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Somalia, and Syria and listened to their stories during the meeting held in the throne room of the Apostolic Palace.
The refugees wished the Pope a happy birthday. They presented him a gift of a painting by an Afghan refugee. The painting depicts migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
“You saved us,” one Congolese boy said when he met the Pope, said the Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni.
The Holy Father celebrates his birthdays’ centered on other people who are in various life statuses.