Fifteen years on, a Pope returns to San Marino. On Saturday 22 August, the Republic will welcome Leo XIV, in a day destined to go down in Titano’s history — one that inevitably brings to mind another visit: that of Benedict XVI on 19 June 2011.
Fifteen years have passed, and both the world and San Marino have changed, yet some of the words spoken back then by Joseph Ratzinger seem to echo still today, on the eve of Leo XIV’s arrival.
That day, Benedict XVI entered the Hall of the Grand and General Council (Consiglio Grande e Generale) at Palazzo Pubblico and, before the Captains Regent, the Government, the Congress and the Diplomatic Corps, first recalled the ancient bond between the Republic and the Holy See. But his speech went well beyond the institutional significance of the visit. Ratzinger spoke directly about San Marino’s identity, linking it to the Republic’s Christian history, to freedom, and to its capacity to build a community grounded in peaceful coexistence and solidarity.
A passage that takes on particular meaning today. Benedict XVI urged San Marino to preserve and cultivate its heritage of values, regarding it as the foundation of its deepest identity. Not merely a defence of the past, but a starting point for confronting the transformations of society.
In 2011, San Marino was going through a delicate economic and political phase. Even then, the Pope spoke of crisis as an opportunity to “redesign the path ahead”, stressing the need to face problems with “courage and a sense of responsibility, with generosity and dedication.” Words spoken fifteen years ago that can be read afresh in light of the challenges the Republic faces today.
At the heart of the speech was, above all, a concept deeply tied to San Marino’s history: freedom. Benedict XVI recalled the words addressed in 1959 by John XXIII to the Captains Regent: “The love of freedom among you boasts distinctly Christian roots.” A reference that joined Titano’s institutional tradition to the responsibility of building a society capable of safeguarding the common good.
Ratzinger closed with a wish for San Marino: that the Republic might “write a new and noble page of history” and become ever more a land where solidarity and peace could flourish.
Fifteen years later, those words inevitably come to mind as Titano prepares to welcome Pope Leo XIV. It will be a different era, a different Pontiff, and a different San Marino. But the thread linking the two visits runs precisely through the questions that have accompanied the Republic for centuries: how to safeguard one’s identity while continuing to change, how to defend freedom by turning it into responsibility, and how to face new challenges without losing one’s roots.
On 22 August, it will be Leo XIV’s turn to leave his message on Titano. And it will be impossible not to hear it in light of those words spoken, fifteen years earlier, in that very same institutional heart of the Republic.
