The Secretariat General of the Delegation of Naples and Campania of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George has communicated the calendar for its next meetings in the months of May and June 2024. A Holy Mass will be celebrated for the third anniversary of the beatification of Judge Rosario Livatino; the launch of the book “The squares of the City of Naples and the House of the Annunziata” will take place, after 400 years with a new annotated edition; the annual pilgrimage to the Abbey of Montevergine Sanctuary and the granting of a scholarship have been announced; and the Delegation will participate in the Solemn Holy Mass and Procession of Corpus Domini in Nola.

Thursday 9 May 2024 at 5.30 pm

Master Chapel of San Giuseppe dei Nudi

Monumental Complex of San Giuseppe dei Nudi

via San Giuseppe dei Nudi 72

Naples

Holy Mass for the third anniversary of the beatification of Judge Rosario Livatino

The Holy Mass, organized by the San Giuseppe dei Nudí Foundation, in collaboration with the Rosario Livatino Study Center and the Order’s Delegation of Naples and Campania, will be celebrated by the Chief Chaplain of the Order’s Delegation of Naples and Campania, Fra’ Sergio Galdi d’Aragona, OFM, Chaplain of Justice, Commissioner General of the Holy Land in Naples.

Blessed Rosario Livatino is an exemplary figure in the Italian judiciary. Throughout his life and in the context of his professional commitment he combined his role as a front-line magistrate, in an open fight against the Mafia, with his solid Christian principles, which he consistently applied even in his relationships with those he investigated. Livatino considered his work as a true mission, inherent to his Faith. This singular way of presenting himself in his working environment led him to be beatified on 9 May 2021, on the anniversary of the 1993 Pastoral Visit to the Valley of the Temples of Saint John Paul II, who at the end of the Homily of the Mass pronounced a harsh anathema against the mafiosi, an expression of the “culture of death”:  “These people who carry so many human victims on their consciences must understand, they must understand that killing innocents is not allowed! God once said: ‘Do not kill’: no man, any, any human agglomeration, or Mafia, cannot change and trample on this most holy right of God! Here we need civility of life! In the name of this Christ, crucified and risen, of this Christ who is life, way, truth and life, I say it to those in charge, I say it to those in charge: convert! One day the judgment of God will come!”

Friday 10 May 2024 at 5.30 pm

Master chapel of San Giuseppe dei Nudi

via San Giuseppe dei Nudi 72

Naples

Launch of the book The squares of the city of Naples and the House of the Annunziata. A new annotated edition after 400 years.

The following people will speak:

Attorney Ugo de Flaviis, Knight of Merit with silver star, President of the San Giuseppe dei Nudi Foundation;

Gionata Barbieri, Knight of Merit with silver plaque, President of the Arnau Roger Academy; and the editor of the volume, Prof. Gianandrea de Antonellis, of the Baroni de Antonellis, Knight of Merit and Director of the Academic Section “Political Thought of Hispanic Naples”.

The presentation is being organized by the Real Monte Archconfraternity of San Giuseppe dell’Opera di Vestire i Nudi and by the Arnau Rogen Academy, in collaboration with the Delegation of Naples and Campania and the patronage of the Consulate General of Spain in Naples.

The volume The squares of the city of Naples and the House of the Annunziata, edited by Prof. Gianandrea de Antonellis (D’Amico Editore 2023), collects four essays by the seventeenth-century scholar Francesco Imperato, which are particularly useful for understanding the functioning of the institutions of Hispanic Naples. First of all, it treats political speech in connection with the regimen of squares in the city of Naples, which reconstructs the genesis of the city “parliament.”  This is followed by a study of the privileges, chapters and graces granted to the faithful people of Naples, in which the rights of the Piazza del Popolo are defended. The review concludes with a discussion on the origin and management of the most holy House of the Annunziata (House of the Annunciation), which effectively illustrates the functioning of this fundamental private institution providing assistance to the needy.

Date still to be determined in May 2024: Mercogliano

Pilgrimage to the Montevergine Abbey Sanctuary

The pilgrimage will take place under the guidance of Father Antonio Chirichella, director of the diocesan liturgical office of the territorial Abbey of Montevergine.

The Abbey of Montevergine, founded around 1118 by Saint William of Vercelli, also called Saint William of Montevergine, and around whose sanctuary a strong Marian cult soon developed, was erected as an abbey nullius with two provisions: by Pope Alexander IV in 1261 and by Pope Urban IV in 1264. They constitute the point of arrival of the spiritual and temporal expansion achieved by the abbey in southern Italy, including San Giovanni degli Eremiti in Sicily and exercising, from 1195, feudal powers over Mercogliano.

In the 12th century, the heart of the Christian Middle Ages, Saint William embodied one of the highest images of the man of God. Apostle and pilgrim, perpetually on the march, William dedicated his life, in many ways adventurous and imaginative, to the spread of the Gospel in every place and among every kind of humanity. In the context of medieval Christianity, he represented a link between the experiences of the monks who led the reform of the Benedictine Order from the hermitages of Camaldoli, Vallombrosa and Chiaravalle, and the return to a more lively and spontaneous, simple and popular religiosity, better suited to interpreting the evangelical model. For this reason William has often been placed alongside the figure of Saint Francis, although the “poor man” of Assisi was born only forty years after the death of the founder of Montevergine. His apostolic work in southern Italy precedes that of Saint Francis, but there is too little iconography and literature, a fate common to that of many other precursors, with the result that we do not have today the right measure of the life and works of Saint William of Vercelli.

The true history of the Sanctuary of Montevergine begins with the consecration of the first church by the Bishop of Avellino, when (as the first biographer expressed it) “the church was built and a large number of people gathered there for the service of God, and, following the common opinion, William decided that the aforementioned church should be dedicated to honor Mary, Mother of God and ever Virgin.” Therefore the Sanctuary of Montevergine owes its origin not to an apparition of the Madonna or something similar, but to that ascetic Marian spirit of Saint William and his disciples, who, not without divine inspiration, wanted to build a lighthouse in Montevergine in devotion to the Madonna, consecrating a church on that mountain and dedicating the original monastery to her. William, having lit the fire of the love of God and the Virgin on the sacred mountain, took himself elsewhere as advisor to the powerful, helper of the humble, tireless worker in building the houses of the Lord and his religious, who everywhere surrounded him with a thick crown. His earthly labor ended on 24 June 1142, in the Goleto Monastery, near Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi (Avellino).

Soon many other monasteries arose under the Montevergine Monastery, thus developing the Verginian Congregation. The 12th-14th centuries marked the apogee of the splendor of this institution: popes, kings, princes and great feudal lords competed in enriching Montevergine, some with spiritual goods, some with munificent gifts, some with large fiefdoms and sovereign protection. The Congregation suffered extensively during the Great Western Schism (1378-1420), and thus began to decline, even taking a dizzying turn when the unfortunate commendation (1430-1588) made the responsibility of governing the abbey pass to men who had no other interest than to receive the lavish benefits assigned to them. An attempt was made to halt its fatal descent after 1588 with a second period of awakening and vitality; but later other factors intervened, which almost completely destroyed the Congregation in the two fatal suppressions of 1807 and 1861. The Sanctuary was barely saved, so as to keep the devotion to the Madonna and to her faithful servant, William of Vercelli, alive for centuries.

Date still to be determined in May 2024

Pontifical Royal Basilica of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli

Piazza Municipio 27

Naples

The award of a scholarship to the student Giuseppe Calandrelli

Sunday 2 June 2024 at 7.00 pm

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta

Nola

Solemn Holy Mass and Corpus Domini Procession

The Most Reverend Francesco Marino, Bishop of Nola, will preside, assisted by the Cathedral Chapter. The Holy Mass will be followed at 8.00 pm by the traditional Corpus Domini Procession through the streets of the historic center of the city, with departure and return to the Cathedral.

PHOTOGRAPHS

ABOVE:  The Abbey of Montevergine

BELOW:  The Blessed Judge Rosario Livatino; the cover of the book LE PIAZZE DELLA CITT`A DI NAPOLI E LA CASA DELL’ANNUNZIATA; the Sanctuary of the Abbey of Montevergine