The Pope’s visit

Many minutes spent gripping the Cross, symbolizing mankind crushed by unbearable pain, shared deep down inside.On 17th July 1988 His Holiness Pope John Paul II visited the scene of the disaster and stopped to pray at the cemetery of San Leonardo in Tesero. — Many minutes spent gripping the Cross, symbolizing mankind crushed by unbearable pain, shared deep down inside.

On 17^th July 1988, Pope John Paul II paid a visit to the sites of the Stava catastrophe.

The Pontiff stood and prayed in the Church of San Leonardo and paid a visit to the cemetery of the victims. After kneeling down for some timeless minutes gripping the Cross, he had words of comfort for each of the relatives gathered around the three mass graves where the 71 unidentified bodies had been buried.

Afterwards the Pope went to Stava where he met the people of the village and several thousand pilgrims arrived for the occasion. A crystal plaque bearing the names of all the persons who lost their lives in the disaster was blessed by the Pope and was subsequently placed in the church of Stava.

His Holiness Pope John Paul II meets the relatives of the victims - 17th July 1988. — His Holiness Pope John Paul II meets the relatives of the victims – 17^th July 1988.

In 1989 on the fourth anniversary of the disaster, the Association of the Relatives of the Victims of the Stava Valley Disaster published a book containing the most significant pictures of the meetings between the Pope and relatives of the victims and the people.

The book also collected the full texts of the sermons pronounced by the Pontiff and by the Archbishop of Trento, who also commemorated the memory of the victims on various occasions.