"He touched my face and when he was doing it, I only felt love," said the disfigured man who Pope Francis kissed in a touching moment caught on camera earlier this month.
Vinicio Riva, 53, gave an exclusive interview to the Italian magazine Panorama. Read about it in English here.
"I tried to speak to say something but I was unable to," Riva, who lives near the Vicenza province, said according to a TIME translation of the interview. "The emotion was too strong. It lasted a little longer than a minute but it felt as if it were eternity."
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