Vinicio Riva, disfigured man blessed by Pope, shares his story

Earlier this month, we shared a touching photo of Pope Francis holding a disfigured man's face in his hands.

This week, that man, Vinicio Riva, is sharing his story.

"He came down from the altar to see the sick people. He embraced me without saying a word," Riva says of his encounter with the Pope. "He was completely silent but sometimes you can say more when you say nothing."

The 53-year-old Italian man suffers from neurofibromatosis, a rare genetic disease that has left him disfigured by tumours. He is often shunned in public because of it, he says, and even his own doctors recoil at the sight of him.

Diagnosed with the disease at the age of two, Riva was only expected to live to the age of 30.

He tells Italian news magazine Panorama that being kissed by Pope Francis was like "being in Paradise."

"I tried to speak to say something but I was unable to," Riva, who lives near the Vicenza province, recalls, according to a TIME translation of the interview. "1The emotion was too strong. It lasted a little longer than a minute but it felt as if it were eternity."

Riva says what stood out the most was the Pope's lack of hesitation.

"His hands were so soft. And his smile was so clear and open. But the thing that struck me most is that there has not been thinking about whether or not to hug me. I'm not contagious, but he did not know. But he just did it: he caressed me all over my face, and as he did, I felt only love," he recalls.

After the blessing, Riva told his aunt, "Here I leave my pain."