25. June 2025
Pope Leo XIV. paid attention to the activities of NAPS Institute
Members of the Council of the NAPS Institute – Our Activities for Slovakia, Peter and Lenka Solej, visited the Vatican at the end of June 2025 as part of the ongoing Jubilee Year of the Catholic Church. The culmination of their visit was a meeting with Pope Leo XIV. “We presented the Holy Father with photographs the most significant moments from the twenty years of international ecumenical activities of the NAPS Institute to date and expressed our joy and gratitude for the excellent long-term cooperation of NAPS with the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, as well as with the Apostolic Nunciature in Slovakia,” said Peter Solej, founder and director of NAPS, after the meeting.
“Since Pope Leo XIV. is only at the beginning of his pontificate, with respect and sincere joy we presented the Holy Father with two gifts from the portfolio of our family company LE SOLEIL (www.lesoleil.sk), namely a Greek icon of the Mother of Perpetual Help and an Italian fountain pen of the AURORA brand with the wish that His Holiness, under the protection of the Mother of Perpetual Help, will write a holy pontificate,” said Peter Solej. “For me personally, this meeting was the tenth meeting in a row with the third pope. This fact greatly deepens my commitment and determination to continue the non-commercial activities of NAPS for building a better society in the spirit of the motto Ora et Labora,” added Solej.
After the meeting with the head of the Catholic Church, the guests from Slovakia were also received in a special audience by the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch. “His Eminence was extremely pleased with further progress in the ecumenical activities of the NAPS. One of them is the fact that the recording of last year’s sixteenth year of the event will be broadcast for the first time in history by foreign television, specifically the Hungarian MTVA,” added Solej. The cooperation of the Slovak Institute with the Vatican Dicastery began in 2010, and Cardinal Koch made his first ever visit to Slovakia in 2017 at the invitation of the NAPS Institute.