 Dorothy Day once referred to La Pira as "a saint in politics" who "took the unused homes of the rich to make homes for the poor" in October 1963.La Pira's close friend Paul VI characterized him as "the example every Christian ought to keep firmly in mind during his earthly passage towards the kingdom of God" in his General Audience address on 9 November 1977.John Paul II later remarked that La Pira was "an exemplary lay Christian".