In these days you are meeting in Assisi, the town in which “a sun was born into the world” (Dante, Paradise, Canto XI). He was proclaimed Patron of Italy by Venerable Pius xii: St Francis, who keeps intact his freshness and timeliness — Saints never fade! — due to his being conformed totally to Christ, of which he was a living icon.

- Message to Cardinal Bagnasco

4 November 2010