Story By: Fr Jamie Collins

During Lent this year, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development engaged Italian Street Artist Mauro Pallotta to provide a visual interpretation of Pope Francis’ Lenten Message.

The first piece of cartoon-style art shows Pope Francis with a wheelbarrow navigating a road full of difficulties.

However, the illustration suggests that it is through faith and the guidance of the Pope himself, that the challenging road becomes possible.

St Anthony’s Parish, inspired by the illustration, displayed an empty wheelbarrow on the sanctuary in front of the altar for the duration of Lent, reflecting the title of the Pope’s Message, “Through the Desert God Leads us to Freedom”.

Representing our faith being nourished through the wilderness of Lent, the wheelbarrow was then decorated appropriately for the days of the Sacred Triduum and burst into colour at the Easter Vigil.

The drawings released weekly during Lent by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development were printed in the Parish Bulletin, along with the reference to the Pope’s Lenten Message.

About the artist: For 2024, the Vatican commissioned artist Mauro Pallotta to create the official image for Lent. The artist, also known as Maupal, was born in 1972 in Rome. He attended the A. Caravillani Art School and later the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.

Maupal’s first foray into street art, titled “Super Pope”, garnered him world wide attention. 

During a press conference in Rome to present the Holy Father’s 2024 Lenten Message, the artist said, “Translating the words of Pope Francis into works and conveying the values expressed in the Message through my art, is for me a preferential way of reaching far, breaking down barriers and somehow accompanying people to cross the desert to reach the desired goal of freedom.”

During this year’s Lent, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development published a new Maupal drawing once a week to compliment a passage from the 2024 Lenten Message.