Pope Leo XIV prays for victims of Rome explosion

…Host Montenegro’s Prime Minister

Pope Leo XIV offered his prayers for victims of the explosion that rocked a gas station in eastern Rome on Friday morning.

“I pray for the people involved in the explosion at a gas station this morning in the Prenestino Labicano district, in the heart of my Diocese. I continue to follow with concern the developments of this tragic incident,” the Pope posted in Italian on his X account (@Pontifex_it).

According to the Vatican, the Pope reached out via social media to express concern and solidarity for his diocese, especially to the residents of the neighborhood affected.

According to preliminary reports from Rome’s fire department, the explosion was allegedly caused by the detachment of a pipeline from a fuel tanker that was refilling the station.

Over 20 people were injured, including nine police officers, a firefighter, and a first responder, in the incident that occurred shortly after 8:15 AM on Friday, July 4.

The blast was heard in various neighborhoods across the city, and a large cloud of smoke was seen rising in the sky.

According to report, a nearby sports center, Polisportiva Villa De Sanctis, which hosts a summer camp for children, was heavily damaged but luckily had been evacuated before the blast.

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“If it had happened an hour later, it would have been a massacre. There would have been the 60 children from the summer center, us coordinators, and 120 people who booked the pool. The sports center is damaged; it looks like a battlefield,” Fabio Balzani, president of the center, stated.

Similarly, Pope Leo also received Milojko Spajić, the Prime Minister of Montenegro, in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, on Friday morning.

According to the Vatican, Spajić met afterwards with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, accompanied by Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for relations with states and international organizations.

The parties expressed satisfaction “for the current good bilateral relations, and various questions regarding Church-State relations were discussed,” during the cordial talks at the Secretariat of State according to the Holy See press office.

They then discussed various “regional and international issues, with particular attention given to the enlargement of the European Union to the countries of the western Balkans, and to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.”