Pope Francis was mobbed by a group of starstruck nuns during his visit to Naples Cathedral, prompting a cardinal to exclaim: ‘They are going to eat him!’
The cloistered nuns, who usually observe the rules of ‘papal enclosure and rarely leave their nunneries, were let out of their convents for the special occasion.
But to the pontiff’s bewilderment, the overly excited women swarmed him during his pastoral visit and needed to be reined in by the Archbishop of Naples.
Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe urged the ‘sisters’ - who stood to applaud the pontiff as he made his entrance and then inundated him with gifts - to restrain themselves through a microphone, the Telegraph reported.
He said: ‘Sisters… Later… well would you look at that.'
And to the amusement of those in the building, he joked: ‘And these are the cloistered ones. Just imagine the non-cloistered ones.’
He then added: ‘They are going to eat him! Sisters, sisters!’
During his one-day visit to Naples yesterday, the Argentine pontiff visited the cathedral to visit priests and religious leaders.
As he toured some of the city’s poorest areas, where the mafia reign, hundred of thousands gathered for a glimpse.
But only a few managed to get as much quality time with Pope Francis as the nuns, from seven different closed convents, who had acquired special permission to attend the service.
In 2013, the Pope’s presence in the Brazilian town of Aparecida had a similar effect on a group of around 40 nuns.
At the time, Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said one nun rushed toward the Pope, embraced him and asked to take a photo together – leading others to follow suit.
He added it was ‘one of the most remarkable things’ he had seen during Francis' first inaugral international trip.
The Pope also had lunch with at least 10 gay, transgender and HIV-suffering inmates at a prison in Naples.
He shared a meal with about 120 male and female inmates in a city jail, among them several transsexuals and AIDS sufferers chosen to represent those sectors of the prison population, a Church official confirmed.
The stop-off at the Giuseppe Salvia Detention Centre in Poggioreale was not originally on his schedule.
But the Pope reportedly insisted on the meal which was prepared by the prisoners themselves.
The prison visit formed part of a very busy day for Pope Francis in the city 150 miles south of Rome.
He began praying at a sanctuary in Pompeii, before holding a string of events which include an outdoor mass and meetings with young people and the sick before heading back to the Vatican this evening.
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