CNA Staff, Mar 22, 2021 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis on Monday encouraged students at Rome’s Pontifical Filipino College to welcome “the opportunities that the Lord gives you to follow him,” even while they are away from their beloved homeland.

Speaking in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall March 22, the pope congratulated the college, which hosts diocesan priests from the Philippines studying at pontifical universities in Rome, on its 60th anniversary.