Reuters is reporting that the Vatican City post office, headed by Monsignor Giuliano Gallorini and run by a staff of three women, is comprised of a single small room with cardboard boxes labeled by language that are used for sorting letters.
"Mostly, they are requests for comfort or prayers," Monsignor Gallorini told Vatican Television (CTV). "They are signs of the difficult times in which we live. Many of them are about difficulties, above all illnesses. They ask for prayers for illnesses. They describe their difficult economic situations."
Only the most urgent and personal letters are passed on to two priests who serve as the pope's private secretaries.
"These are the ones that are a little more delicate, that have to do with questions of conscience," Gallorini said.
Letters that deal with economic difficulties are sent to local Catholic charities where decisions are made as to how to respond. Unfortunately for the three ladies at the post office, since the subject matter decides where the letter will end up, they cannnot simply do a usps address change online.
However, some of these requests find their way into the hands of the benevolent Francis who sent money last year to a Venetian woman who was mugged on her way to visiting her sick husband in the hospital. He also sent funds and a phone card to each survivor of the Lampedusa shipwreck that claimed the lives of 300 migrants last October.
Stories such as these only add to the pile of mail the pope receives every week, which averages about 30 sacks. If this pace keeps up, it could mean the tiny post office will handle 300,000 letters by the end of this year.
Even though the pope tweets messages, one senior aide told Reuters that Francis doesn't have an e-mail account and prefers "old-fashioned letters".
Letters to Pope Francis can be sent to: His Holiness, Pope Francis PP., 00120 Via del Pellegrino, Citta del Vaticano or His Holiness Pope Francis, Vatican City State, 00120.
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