N.Y. Mayor Eric Adams tackles Rome's graffiti after papal audience

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) -- New York's Mayor Eric Adams took a break between an audience with Pope Francis in the Vatican and a conference on human fraternity to head to Rome's Trastevere neighborhood to help volunteers paint over graffiti.

He arrived about 15 minutes after Rome's Mayor Roberto Gualtieri joined organizers and volunteers from the "Trastevere Attiva" and "ReTake Roma" associations at 12:15 p.m. May 11 as part of an annual city-wide initiative called, "Rome Takes Care of Rome."

Wearing a blue "ReTake" volunteer bib, a baseball cap and sunglasses, Adams stood next to Gualtieri as they brushed light-colored paint over a wall near a 13th-century former monastery.

"This is good paint," he said, commenting on how well it was covering up the spray paint, grime and markings on the wall.

After the brief, symbolic paint job, which volunteers completed, Adams and Gualtieri were taken inside the former monastery to its cloistered garden, which has been "adopted" by "Trastevere Attiva," whose volunteers have established an herbal and vegetable garden similar to those cultivated by monks in the Middle Ages. Sections of the monastery are part of a public hospital complex, and the group involves at-risk teenagers who live at a hospital residence to take care of the garden and enjoy the fresh vegetables.

Adams gave a brief speech, Gianfranco Caldarelli, president of "Trastevere Attiva," told Catholic News Service. "He talked about how New York had similar problems" with urban blight and neglect, and how local volunteers play an important part in pitching in to help support the city's efforts.

Adams was in Rome for the May 10-11 World Meeting on Human Fraternity, organized by the Vatican's Fratelli Tutti Foundation. The conference brought Nobel laureates, government officials, scientists, experts, athletes and artists to a series of roundtable discussions across the city to discuss specific themes all aimed at strengthening solidarity and peace.

"I'm traveling to Rome because the solutions to the problems facing our city, country and planet must be solved together -- by sharing ideas and strategies," Adams said on his mayoral channel on X, @NYCMayor, May 10.

"We will be talking infrastructure, climate change, the asylum seeker crisis and so much more. Through hard work and faith, there is nothing we can't accomplish," he wrote.