Mom says son’s impromptu encounter with Pope Francis led to ‘miracle’

It was one of the viral Vatican moments of 2021: a boy in a black tracksuit, spectacles, and a face mask spontaneously walking up to greet Pope Francis in the middle of a general audience.

But there was more to the impromptu encounter in October than met the eye: the 10-year-old suffered from epilepsy and autism. His health had recently declined so severely that doctors feared he might have a brain tumor.

Paolo Bonavita was in Rome that day for medical tests. His mother, Elsa Morra, told CNA that the papal audience was followed by an inexplicable improvement in her son’s condition.

“It’s a miracle,” she said. “It’s a miracle, for us, for my family.”

‘The Lord was with him that day’

At the start of the live-streamed audience on Oct. 20, Bonavita unexpectedly walked up the steps toward the pope at the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

“Paolo did not have the strength to go up. In fact, when Paolo goes down the stairs he needs a support, a hand, or a handrail. But that day he was able to go up alone,” Morra said in an interview with CNA via an instant messaging platform.

“He stumbled a little, two or three times, but he immediately had the instinct to get up again. The Lord was with him that day, close by, He had given him His hand, I’m convinced of it.”