Unable to walk the the streets without being recognized, Pope Francis kept his sense of humor after being caught on camera making an unannounced visit to an Italian record store.
Javier Martinez-Brocal, director of the Rome Reports news agency, filmed Francis leaving the newly renovated Stereo Sound. Writing a note to the pope, explaining that he wasn’t a paparazzo and regretting that the pontiff can’t move around unnoticed anymore, he added that the story provided a much-needed dose of good news for a world inundated with tragedy.
“I won’t deny that it was (bad luck) that after taking all the precautions, there was a journalist waiting for someone on the taxi line,” Francis replied. But he added: “You can’t lose your sense of humor.”
Francis acknowledged that Martinez-Brocal was only doing his job as a journalist when he recorded the event, quipping “Thank you for doing your vocation, even if it put the pope in difficulty.”
The shop owners told The Associated Press that the pope had arrived unannounced at around 7 p.m. “He walked in the shop and it was an amazing meeting. And as he promised, he blessed the shop,” said shop owner Tiziana Esposito. Co-owner Danilo Genio said Francis was a longtime customer who had popped in whenever he was in Rome for meetings at the Vatican when he was a priest, archbishop and then cardinal in Buenos Aires, stating: “When he came to Rome to go to the Vatican he used to come here first to buy some gifts,” he said.
Francis, who grew up listening to opera on the radio and loves tango, Mozart and Wagner, didn’t buy anything this time around. But the shop owners gave him a CD of classical music.
Keep up with the latest trending music news by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Author: Al Denté
Photo: Alfredo Borba