The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has an important appointment at the Vatican this Monday. Pope Francis will receive him in a private audience at 9 in the morning in the private library of the Apostolic Palace, the place where he usually meets with the highest institutional representatives in the Holy See.
The call is important. The only Catalan president who has been received in audience by a pontiff so far is Jordi Pujol, who held a meeting with John Paul II at the beginning of 1981. Artur Mas was also received in audience by Karol Wojtyla when he was councilor in cap, in 2002. Jordi Pujol met John Paul II again on his visit to Catalonia in 1982 and the socialist José Montilla also received Benedict XVI when he traveled to Barcelona in 2010.
As explained by the Generalitat, the hearing was requested by letter by the president on June 22 of this year, after a meeting with the cardinal archbishop of Barcelona, Joan Josep Omella. In the letter, Aragonès mentioned the relations between the Catalan institutions and the Vatican, and the proximity of two relevant events in Catalonia, the celebration in 2025 of the millennium of the Abbey of Montserrat and the completion of the works on the Sagrada Família.
The Vatican responded on July 1, also by letter, the usual channel, confirming that the Pontiff would receive the president in a private audience, and later they finalized the date that will finally be this Monday, November 6. The meeting will come at a decisive moment, just after ERC has reached an agreement with the PSOE for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, and awaiting Junts per Catalunya.
Not long ago Francisco received another Catalan delegation. It was on October 7, when he had an audience with the participants of a pilgrimage to Rome of the brotherhood of the Virgin of Montserrat for the 800 years of its foundation. Then, Francisco greeted in Catalan with a “bon dia a tots!”, but later there was a controversy that arose on social networks after Omella told him that the blessing should be in Spanish.
Pope Francis has already received other regional presidents. In May 2021 he received Emiliano García-Page as president of Castilla-La Mancha for about 40 minutes. The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz-Ayuso, also held an audience with him in March of this year on the occasion of the IV Centenary of the Canonization of San Isidro Labrador, patron saint of the city of Madrid.
