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Child runs onstage to play during pope’s address to Vatican audience hall

Pope Francis let the boy continue after being told he has behavioural problems and cannot speak.
Pope Francis let the boy continue after being told he has behavioural problems and cannot speak. Pope Francis let the boy continue after being told he has behavioural problems and cannot speak.

Pope Francis has praised a mute child who climbed onstage at the Vatican on Wednesday to play during the pontiff’s general audience.

Swiss Guards and Vatican gendarmes stood by and gamely let six-year-old Wenzel Wirth run around Francis, who commended the “freedom” displayed by the little boy.

The child makes his way onto the stage
The child makes his way onto the stage (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (Gregorio Borgia/AP/PA Images)
Pop Francis and Archbishop George Gaenswein laugh as the boy comes onstage
Pop Francis and Archbishop George Gaenswein laugh as the boy comes onstage (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (Gregorio Borgia/AP/PA Images)

When Wenzel’s Argentine-Italian mother went on stage to fetch him, she explained to Francis that the boy cannot speak.

Francis responded “Let him be, let him be,” and the mother retreated and let Wenzel continue to play.

The child is begun to be taken away by their mother
The child is begun to be taken away by their mother (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (Gregorio Borgia/AP/PA Images)
The child is left by the mother onstage
The child is left by the mother onstage (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (Gregorio Borgia/AP/PA Images)

When Francis took the microphone, he explained in Spanish to the crowd that the child was speech-impaired.

“But he knows how to communicate, to express himself. And he has something that made me think – he’s free. Undiciplined-ly free, but he’s free,” a chuckling Francis said to applause from the crowd.

“It made me think, ‘am I so free before God?’

“When Jesus says we have to be like children, it means we need to have the freedom that a child has before his father.

“I think this child preaches to all of us. And let us ask for the grace of speech (for him).”

The child walks around the back of the guard
The child walks around the back of the guard (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (Gregorio Borgia/AP/PA Images)
Vatican child
Vatican child The little boy climbed on to the area where Pope Francis was speaking (Gregorio Borgia/PA)

The boy’s father, Ariel Wirth, told The Associated Press that Wenzel suffers from behavioural problems as well as his speech limitations, and that the family at home tries simply to let him express himself as he can.

“We try to let him be free. He has to express himself, and we live without hiding his problems,” he said.

The family lives in Verona and went to Rome just for Wednesday’s general audience.

The child plays with the guard
The child plays with the guard (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (Gregorio Borgia/AP/PA Images)
The child looks back at the audience in the Vatican hall
The child looks back at the audience in the Vatican hall (Gregorio Borgia/PA) (Gregorio Borgia/AP/PA Images)

Mr Wirth said Wenzel was tired after the long journey and long wait for the pope Wednesday morning, and clearly needed to run around.

“It was not planned,” he said, though he added that the family had told Wenzel that they were going to see the pope and that he was clearly excited at the prospect.