Madonna di San Polo: the 2021 Apparition and a Bishop's Story

The apparition of 22 May 2021 to three children

The story of the Madonna di San Polo in Lonato del Garda continues. Luigi always wished to become known only after his death, and wanted the place itself to become known through what others told about it. That wish was granted on 22 May 2021, when Our Lady appeared to three children aged 6, 7 and 8, two girls and a boy, all cousins, during Holy Mass. This event legitimised spreading knowledge of the place and devotion to Mary Mediatrix and Dispenser of Grace. The Church, through the Curia of Verona and its bishop, Giuseppe Zenti, has been informed of the events, which are still under examination.

Testimony of Bishop Gabriel Sayaogo: “My first meeting with Luigi”

On Friday 23 February 2018 I had the pleasure of welcoming Mr Luigi Mangiarini and a few members of the “Mary Mediatrix and Dispenser of Grace” Foundation to the bishop’s house in Manga. Almost ten years had gone by, yet he was the same Luigi I had met nine years earlier: a smiling face, a calm and friendly gaze. He was not a talker. He seemed to weigh his words before speaking them. Nine years have passed and I never expected to be writing down what happened, so some details may not be mathematically exact.

Archbishop Gabriel Sayaogo in purple vestments beside Luigi Mangiarini and the white statue of Mary Mediatrix and Dispenser of Grace under the San Polo shrine dome

It was early 2009, during one of Luigi’s trips to Burkina Faso. Having come to Saku, a small village in the parish of Tikare in the diocese of Ouahigouya (pronounced Wayiguya), the group travelled on to Wayiguya to greet the bishop. I don’t remember how many of them there were, but that day there were five of us priests at the bishop’s house. Knowing they were coming, we had invited a few priests serving in Wayiguya to lunch. As we chatted – I can no longer recall what about – Luigi suddenly looked at me and said calmly: “You will be a bishop.” He did not even seem to attach any importance to his words. He was toying with something in his hands (a glass? a napkin? a spoon? I don’t remember). That was the mood in which he let the sentence drop. His words were met with the silence that such moments call for. I was vicar general at the time and had no experience whatsoever of a bishop’s office. But I shot back, as if I had stepped on a thorn: “You’re mad.” Some people laughed because I had called him mad, but Luigi, quite serious, said: “I mean it.” I tried again to say it would never be true or even possible. He insisted, and even tried to translate his words for the other priests himself (who no doubt listened with scepticism). And we went on chatting. Need I say that after Luigi left I forgot all about his prophecy?

That is the Luigi I met again in Manga on 23 February, nine years after that day in 2009 and almost seven years after I had indeed been ordained a bishop. They arrived in the evening, after a journey made tiring by the roads. Three days earlier I had met him in Ouagadougou (pronounced Wagadugu), and he had said he wished to visit Manga after a stop in Saku. In Wagadugu, when he saw me dressed as a bishop, he greeted me respectfully and reminded me of the story of his prophecy, or of his madness.

(to be continued)

Article by the Madonna di San Polo Foundation for GN Magazine (November 2026).