Pope Leo XIV marked the first anniversary of his election to the papacy on Friday, with a pastoral visit to the southern Italian cities of Pompeii and Naples.

At the Tempio della Carità – the “Temple of Charity” – in Pompeii, the Augustinian pope told the pastoral workers of his delight at beginning his visits “in the footsteps of Saint Bartolo Longo,” the great nineteenth century Italian revert to the faith from atheism and Satanism, whom Leo canonized in October of last year.

Longo’s story is fascinating, and signs heady, tumultuous times in Italian history when the country was unifying and the temporal power of the papacy was in retreat, and anti-clerical and irreligious sentiment was on the rise.