Last week, Fr. John Wauck, an Opus Dei priest in Rome noticed an enormous ad for DVC on a scrim hanging over a church restoration site.
Looks like something's being done:
"It advertises something that is against Christ and against the church," St. Pantaleo's rector, the Rev. Adolfo Garcia Duran, told The Associated Press.
The Interior Ministry, which owns the church and awarded the contract for the renovation to an external company, said the poster would be removed in the next few days. Officials confirmed the Rome Vicariate had sent a letter requesting the poster be taken down.
The Italian Interior Ministry owns the church??
Posted by: John Sheridan | April 25, 2006 at 02:30 PM
John, due to some fascinating history running from the French Revolution to the Second World War, many (if not most) historic church buildings in a number of European countries (France and Italy are two) are government property. One good example is the mother house of the Carthusians, La Grand Chartreuse in the French Alps. After residing there for 800 years, the monks were ejected by the French government in 1903, and were in exile in a couple of places until 1940. Ironically, the German occupation government didn't care whether the monks retook the site, as long as the French military did not have it.
Another example with a personal connection is the Camaldolese Benedictines (I am an oblate of New Camaldoli in Big Sur). The best known hermitages, Camaldoli and Fonte Avellana are actually owned by the Italian Government, and rented out to the monastic communities. The contents great library of the Camadolese urban monastery of San Michele de Murano (now occupied by Franciscans) are now a significant part of the treasures of the Italian national library system.
Posted by: Claude Muncey | April 25, 2006 at 07:23 PM