Children have the licence to get away with a lot of things that adults cannot – including, but not limited to, upstaging the Pope.

This is what happened on Wednesday when a six-year-old boy interrupted Pope Francis’s general audience by climbing on stage. The boy, identified as Wenzel Wirth by the Associated Press, tugged on a guard’s sleeve and proceeded to run to the Pope’s chair. Another child, thought to be his sister, also ran onto the stage.

When his mother went to get Wirth back, explaining to the Pope that he could not speak, the Pontiff told her to “let him be”. He went on to discuss the incident with the audience. “He is mute, but he can communicate. And he has something that made me think: He’s free. Undiciplinedly free, but he’s free. It made me think, ‘Am I so free before God?’” he was reported to have said.