01/17/2022

The Pope spotted at record store in Rome

Pope Francis was spotted visiting a Rome record store last week.

The 85-year-old head of the Catholic Church made the visit to Stereo Sound, a small record store near the Pantheon, on Tuesday night.

The trip was supposed to remain a secret but a local journalist, Javier Martinez-Brocal, happened to witness the event by chance and filmed the pope leaving the store on his phone. He posted a still from the video on Twitter which went viral shortly afterwards.

Pope Francis, who is known for opting against visible police escorts and bulletproof cars, sent a letter to Martinez-Brocal on Thursday to congratulate him on his work despite admitting that he misses being able to walk around unnoticed.

“You can’t deny that it was a case of bad luck… that after taking all the precautions, there was a reporter there at the taxi rank,” his letter read. “One should not lose one’s sense of humour. Thanks for doing your job, even if it did put the pope in difficulty.”

The owners of the record shop later revealed that they became friends with the pope while he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. They explained that he would visit their shop to buy classical music records and CDs.

Of his recent visit, the shop’s co-owner, Tiziana Espositoater, later told The Associated Press, “he walked in the shop and it was an amazing meeting. As he promised, he blessed the shop.”

Although he didn’t make a purchase, the owners gave him a set of classical CDs. While they didn’t reveal any specific artists or composers, Francis is known to like Beethoven, Mozart and Bach.