Elisabetta Casellati, speaker of the upper house Senate and Italy's second most senior official, sent a message on Tuesday to mark the sixth anniversary of Francis' reign.
"I feel profound gratitude for the message of peace, love and fraternity, of welcome and solidarity with which you interpret your papacy every day," Casellati's message stated.
Francis, formerly Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, was inaugurated as Pope on 19 March 2013 becoming the first Jesuit pontiff and the first leader of the Catholic Church from the Southern Hemisphere.
