“Having learned of the passing of your dear mother, Ada, I participate spiritually in the grief that has befallen the family,” assures Pope Francis in a telegram addressed to his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and released by the Vatican press office on September 3, 2024.
The cardinal, who was due to be on the papal plane bound for Indonesia on September 2, canceled his departure in order to be able to celebrate his mother's funeral Mass.
"As I entrust your dear relative to the mercy of the Father, Giver of Life, I raise my prayer to the Lord that he may welcome her in eternal joy, and for all the relatives who mourn her passing, I invoke the consolation of faith in the Risen Christ and send my heartfelt paternal blessing," the Pope's message read.
Ada Miotti Parolin died on August 31 at the age of 96. The family's death announcement refers to Cardinal Parolin as a simple priest under the name “Don Pietro,” as well as his sister Mariarosa and brother Giovanni “together with their spouses, children, grandchildren, and all relatives.”
They report “with sorrow, but in the faith of Jesus Christ crucified and risen” that Ada Miotti Parolin “has peacefully fallen asleep in the Lord.”
The former schoolteacher had been a widow for almost 60 years: Her husband, a shopkeeper, died in a car accident in 1965.
In 2018, Ada Miotti accompanied her son, already then the Pope's Secretary of State, on a visit to the village of Salcedo, where she taught in the 1950s.
Cardinal Parolin, who usually accompanies the Pope on almost all his international trips, did not board the plane taking Francis from Rome to Jakarta on the night of September 2 to 3, in order to be able to celebrate his mother's funeral Mass this Tuesday morning in Schiavon, where her body will now lie. He will stay in the Veneto region for four days before returning to Rome, and will therefore not be taking part in Pope Francis' 45th apostolic journey.
[Article updated after publication to correct news of Cardinal Parolin's plans about the apostolic trip.]
