Pope Receives Gift of White Horse from Polish Parishioner

Vatican city: Pope Leo XIV received a gift of a white horse on the sidelines of his weekly general audience Wednesday. It’s named Proton and comes from a stable in Kolobrzeg-Budzistowo, Poland.

According to Ansa News Agency, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost knows how to ride horses; there are even horses at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. When he was a missionary in Peru, he also used it as a means of transport from one village to another.

The gift of the purebred Arabian horse to the Pope came from a parishioner of St. Adalbert’s Church in London, the Vatican said. “The reason for the gift was that the Pope, while a missionary in Peru, often rode on horseback,” it said. “The donor intends for the horse to be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to help the poor and needy.”

Proton is a purebred Arabian, whose ancestors hail from the Arabian Peninsula. He was bred at Poland’s oldest stud farm, founded over 200 years ago in Jan³w Podlaski.