Pope Francis meets Spider-Man at weekly audience

Rome - Mattia Villardita has been performing in paediatric hospitals dressed as the comic book superhero for the past four years

Pope Francis had an unusual encounter at his Wednesday audience, meeting a Spider-Man impersonator who usually dons the outfit to entertain sick children.

Italian Mattia Villardita, 28, has been performing in paediatric hospitals dressed as the comic book superhero for the past four years.

He shook hands with the pope — who a few years ago was famously depicted as Superman by an Italian street artist — and gave him a Spider-Man mask as a present.

“But the real superheroes are the children who are suffering and their families who are fighting with so much hope,” Villardita told the Vatican’s media outlet, Vatican News.