How to Send the Pope a Letter – And Why You Might Get a Response!
ArticlesChurch Lifeby ChurchPOP Editor - February 7, 2018
Catholic Church England and Wales, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The bishop of Rome is the universal pastor of the whole Church. He’s also traditionally called the
Servant of the Servants of God. Which means you can feel free to try to contact him! Combined with
the fact that he’s known to respond to people personally, sometimes even calling them up on the
phone, you may be wondering how you can contact him.
But how does one go about contacting the Vicar of Christ? Pope Francis doesn’t have an email
address, and he’s probably not reading your replies to his tweets on Twitter. Inspired by a Reddit
post asking about this, we did some research and here’s what we found.
The Mailing Address
The website for the US Embassy to the Holy See recommends that mail for Pope Francis be sent to
this address:
His Holiness, Pope Francis
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City
Notice that neither “Italy” nor “Rome” are a part of the address, since Vatican City is its own
country. Since, unlike previous popes, Pope Francis is living in Casa Santa Martha instead of the
papal apartment, another address you can try is this:
His Holiness, Pope Francis
Saint Martha House
00120 Città del Vaticano, Vatican City
In both cases, be sure to have the correct postage. If you’re unsure of what you need, ask your local
post office. If you’re mailing from the United States, you can use this online calculator to estimate
the needed postage.
How to Write the Letter
The two key principles here are brevity and respect. You need to show respect for both Pope Francis
and the office of the papacy, which was established by Christ himself. This means using his official
address of “His Holiness.” Brevity is important simply because he gets a lot of mail. If you want
him or his workers to actually read what you have to say, make it short and to the point.
If you’d like a response, be sure to include your return address, as well as your phone number!
If you try this and get a response, please let us know!
[See also: Holy Etiquette: The Proper Way to Address Church Officials of Different Ranks]
[See also: How You Can Pray Pope Francis’ “5 Finger Prayer”]
