 Matteo Renzi was elected as a successor to La Pira on 22 June 2009 and his first official visit was to La Pira's grave.Cardinal Stanisław Ryłko hailed La Pira for his courage to express and show witness to his faith in the exercise of a public office.The cardinal referred to La Pira as "a Christian of unsurpassable coherence" whose faith was "the axis of all of his life".