The Circolo San Pietro will open a Center to welcome pilgrims with disabilities for the Jubilee Year

Rome’s historic Circolo di San Pietro will make available to the Holy See, for the Jubilee Year of 2025, a day center at the church of San Giovanni Battista de’ Fiorentini, to welcome pilgrims with disabilities, the elderly and the frail. The center, a few steps from the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica, is a new multifunctional space equipped with services which offers disabled access, and is designed specifically to make the pilgrimage to Rome an experience that excludes no one.

The center, which will be operational during the Holy Year on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, from 12 noon to 5pm, to match the times of the Pope's audiences and the Jubilee events, will be staffed by volunteers from the Circolo, who are trained to provide the best possible welcome to those who arrive. Pilgrims with disabilities, and those accompanying them, will first be welcomed in the reception area of the parish, where they can safely leave luggage and personal effects. Inside there will be a room set up with games and entertainment facilities, and a relaxation area, where they can find hot drinks or heat up food, and make use of the toilets. At the facility pilgrims will also be able to find useful information to assist them in visiting the city.

The charity and hospitality project is part of the ongoing tradition of the Circolo - Roman association of lay Catholics to assisting pilgrims during Jubilee years. The Circolo has been active in Rome since 1869, when it was founded by a group of young Roman lay people to bear witness to their deep bond with the Church and the Pope through charitable activities.