Isabella Salandri gives visitors a preview tour of the Vatican Gardens in Vatican City on Aug. 23, 2024. / Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA. See CNA article for full slideshow.
Vatican City, Aug 29, 2024 / 11:18 am (CNA).
The Vatican Museums this summer introduced a new family-friendly excursion through the papal gardens, an experience designed to teach children how to “contemplate and appreciate nature,” according to the tour’s originator.
Whether skipping down a tree-lined path, sitting on a tree stump, or spotting turtles in a fountain, children and their families now have the chance to encounter the Vatican Gardens in a way tailored to capture the attention of some of its youngest visitors.
A young visitor at the Vatican Gardens in Vatican City, Aug. 23, 2024. Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA
“There was a desire to give families something to actually do together in the museum. There’s such a wealth of possibilities. And so we wanted to, for the first time, dedicate an actual tour to families,” Sister Emanuela Edwards of the Missionaries of Divine Revelation told CNA during an Aug. 23 preview of the tour.
Edwards, who designed the tour as part of her role heading the Vatican Museums’ office of educational activities, said one of the first activities on the walk is to listen to the sounds of nature in the English Garden.
Sister Emanuela Edwards of the Missionaries of Divine Revelation at the Vatican Gardens in Vatican City, Aug. 23, 2024. Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA
“We start by identifying all the different sounds from the natural world,” she said. “But of course, what can be more joyful and more natural than to hear children laughing and enjoying themselves as well? And so to the natural world, we also add this wonderful and essential human element, which is the joy of being together in the family.”
The roughly two-hour “Capture Nature” tour is currently offered on Saturday mornings in English and Italian to groups of about 20 people. It is fully accessible to children with intellectual or physical disabilities — something Edwards said was very important to them when designing the visit.
On a recent tour with two families, CNA followed 5-year-old twins Francesco and Chiara Salvatori and 7-year-old Margherita Scavetta as they played games inviting them to use their senses in various areas of the gardens.
Isabella Salandri with young visitors at the Vatican Gardens in Vatican City, Aug. 23, 2024. Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA
A highlight for all the children was trying to count the number of turtles living in the fountain next to the Casina Pio IV, the home of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Another game asked the kids to work together with their parents to find and identify certain plants from the Bible in the Scripture garden.
With the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica as a backdrop, the three children were asked to spot particular plants or features of fountains and buildings.
St. Peter’s Basilica rises in the background at the Vatican Gardens in Vatican City, Aug.23, 2024. Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA
During one stop in the walk — which passes statues of Mary, including a replica of the Marian grotto at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France — the children got to create their own “masterpieces” with leaves, bird feathers, and twigs collected along the way.
Edwards, whose religious order is sometimes called by the nickname “the green sisters” for the unusual color of their habits, explained that the tour also takes some of its inspiration from Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical Laudato Si’.
“A few steps away there’s the Vatican Museums, where there are the masterpieces of art,” she said. “But in the garden, we’re able to teach the young children that the trees are also the masterpieces of the garden. And so they learn how to care for those masterpieces as well.”
Children create their own “masterpieces” with leaves, bird feathers, and twigs collected along the way during a tour of the Vatican Gardens on Aug. 23, 2024. Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA
Guide Isabella Salandri, one of several tour guides handpicked by Edwards to lead the family tours, interacted with Francesco, Chiara, and Margherita in an engaging way, telling them in lively tones about features of the Vatican Gardens, especially those involving animals, like the monumental Aquilone Fountain, which features a large eagle, the personification of the north wind in Roman mythology.
“The opportunity for the children to do something very interactive we found quite original and fun,” Margherita’s mom, Paola Nuccetelli, said. “Even we are having fun getting to see something we don’t usually see in the city. … And then, who expects to see woods in the heart of Rome?”
Near the end of the tour, the families were surprised by an appearance from Vatican gardener Augusto Minosse, who drove up to the group in his little work van. He asked the kids about their visit and posed for a selfie with Margherita.
Vatican gardener Augusto Minosse greets visitors at the Vatican Gardens in Vatican City, Aug. 23, 2024. Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA
“It was really an immense joy to see [our childrens’] wonder at nature, at creation,” the twins’ dad, Daniele Salvatori, said.
“Certainly for us, and I think also for others, when one is immersed in nature, you become closer to God,” his wife, Romina Zicca, added.
As the tour wrapped up under the hot, noonday sun, guide Salandri asked the three children: “Are you ready for the last game?”
“Does it have to be the last?” Margherita asked.
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Vatican City, Jun 8, 2019 / 11:01 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Saturday he wants people to recognize the Church as their home and a place where they are always welcome.
“How I wish,” he said June 8, that people would recognize the Church “for this more than mercy, for this more than humanity and tenderness, of which there is so much need!”
That “you would feel at home, the ‘maternal home’ where you are always welcome and where you can always come back,” he said.
“You would always feel welcomed, listened to, interpreted well, helped to take a step forward in the direction of the kingdom of God… As a mother knows how to do, even with her now-grown children.”
Pope Francis preached on the motherhood of the Church during an evening Mass for the Vigil of Pentecost for Catholics of the Diocese of Rome.
“What are we celebrating today, all together, in our city of Rome?” he asked. “We celebrate the primacy of the Spirit, which makes us dumb before the unpredictability of God’s plan, and then startled with joy: ‘Then this was what God had for us!'”
Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to take the gifts of the Holy Spirit with them, bringing them in the midst of their brothers and sisters, especially those living in the city of Rome.
“Hear their need for salvation, the cry that comes to Him and that we usually do not hear,” he said. “It is about opening eyes and ears, but above all the heart, listening with the heart.”
“Then we will really get going,” he continued. “Then we will feel within us the fire of Pentecost, which drives us to cry out to the men and women of this city that their slavery is over and that it is Christ the way that leads to the city of Heaven.”
The vigil Mass will conclude with Rome Catholics carrying an icon of Our Lady of Divine Love in procession from St. Peter’s Square to Porta Capena square, which is near Circus Maximus.
The diocese also invited people to join afterward in a traditional night-time pilgrimage ending at Rome’s Shrine of Divine Love, which is located in the far southern outskirts of the city and is the home of the icon of Our Lady of Divine Love.
In his homily, Pope Francis recalled the image and Pope Pius XII’s “special act of thanks and supplication to the Virgin, for the protection of the city of Rome” 75 years ago, on June 11, 1944.
“Divine Love is the Holy Spirit, which springs from the Heart of Christ. It is the ‘spiritual rock’ that accompanies the people of God in the desert, so that drawing from the living water, they can quench their thirst along the way,” he said.
An artist’s rendering of the affordable apartment complex soon to be built by Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance in Los Angeles. / Courtesy of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance
St. Louis, Mo., Aug 26, 2024 / 06:30 am (CNA).
Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, with an average home price almost touching a million dollars in 2024 — a landscape that crowds out not only the poor, but also young families with children. The high cost of housing is one of the primary reasons why tens of thousands of people live on the streets of LA, and most of those who are housed are “rent burdened,” which means they spend more than 30% of their income just keeping a roof over their heads.
In the face of such challenges, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently announced it will provide land for a new housing development dedicated to serving community college students and young people exiting the foster care system.
Amy Anderson, executive director of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance and a former chief of housing for the City of Los Angeles, told EWTN News that a group of Catholic lay leaders from the business and philanthropic community reached out to the archdiocese with a vision for creating an independent, nonprofit affordable housing development organization.
“Our vision is to really collaborate with the archdiocese and [use] the resources potentially available from the archdiocese to create homes that are affordable to a wide range of populations and incomes,” Anderson told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol.
She said they hope to break ground on the project, known as the Willowbrook development, “about a year from now.”
“The archdiocese is a fantastic partner. They are providing the land for our first development, which is already in process, and we’re working really closely with them to identify additional opportunities.”
The proposed building, which will be located steps from Los Angeles Community College, will feature 74 affordable housing units, as well as “on-site supportive services” for young people transitioning out of foster care — a population that often ends up experiencing homelessness.
The land, located at 4665 Willow Brook Ave just a few miles from the Hollywood Sign, currently hosts a Catholic Charities building, which will move its operations to another site to make way for the apartments.
“Through Catholic Charities and our ministries on Skid Row [an LA street where many unhoused people live] and elsewhere, we have been working for many years to provide shelter and services for our homeless brothers and sisters,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement to LAist.
“With this new initiative we see exciting possibilities to make more affordable housing available, especially for families and young people.”
Making land work for mission
The Catholic Church is often cited as the largest non-governmental owner of land in the entire world, with an estimated 177 million acres owned by Catholic entities.
Maddy Johnson, program manager for the Church Properties Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE), noted that the Church as a large landowner is not a new phenomenon, but there is a need today to adapt to modern challenges like regulations, zoning, and the importance of caring for the natural environment.
Many Catholic dioceses and religious orders have properties in their possession that aren’t fulfilling their original purpose, including disused natural land and parking lots, as well as shuttered convents and schools. Sometimes, Johnson said, a diocese or religious order doesn’t even realize the full extent of what they own.
“How can the Church make good strategic decisions, strategic and mission-aligned decisions, if it doesn’t know what properties it’s responsible for?” she said.
The Church of St. Agatha and St. James in Philadelphia, with The Chestnut in the foreground, a housing unit developed on property ground-leased from the church. Courtesy of Maddy Johnson/Church Properties Initiative
Since real estate management is not the Church’s core competency, FIRE aims to “provide a space for peer learning” to educate and equip Church leaders to make better use of their properties in service of the Church’s mission.
To this end, they offer an undergraduate minor at Notre Dame that aims to teach students how to help the Church make strategic real estate decisions that align with the Church’s mission. The Institute also organizes a quarterly networking call with diocesan real estate directors, as well as an annual conference to allow Catholic leaders to convene, share best practices, and learn from each other.
Fr. Patrick Reidy, C.S.C., a professor at Notre Dame Law School and faculty co-director of the Church Properties Initiative, conducts a workshop for diocesan leaders on Notre Dame’s campus in summer 2023. Courtesy of David J. Murphy/Church Properties Initiative
In many cases, Catholic entities that have worked with FIRE have been able to repurpose properties in a way that not only provides income for the church, but also fills a need in the community.
Johnson said the Church is called to respond to the modern problems society faces — one of which is a lack of housing options, especially for the poor.
“Throughout its history, there have been so many different iterations of how the Church expresses its mission…through education, healthcare — those are the ones that we’ve gotten really used to,” Johnson said.
“In our day and age, could it be the need for affordable housing?…that’s a charitable human need in the area that’s not being met.”
Unlocking potential in California
Queen of Angels Housing’s first development, which has been in the works for several years, is being made possible now by a newly-passed state law in California that aims to make it easier for churches to repurpose their land into housing.
California’s SB 4, the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, was signed into law in October 2023. It streamlines some of the trickiest parts of the process of turning church-owned land into housing — the parts most people don’t really think about. These can include permitting and zoning restrictions, which restrict the types of buildings that can be built in a given area and can be difficult and time-consuming to overcome. SB 4 even includes a provision allowing for denser housing on church-owned property than the zoning ordinances would normally allow.
Yes in God’s Backyard
The law coming to fruition in California is part of a larger movement informally dubbed “Yes in God’s Backyard,” or YIGBY — a riff on the term “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY), a phenomenon whereby neighbors take issue with and oppose new developments.
Several Catholic real estate professionals with ties to California expressed excitement about the possibilities that SB 4 has created in the Golden State.
Steve Cameron, a Catholic real estate developer in Orange County, told CNA that he is currently working with the Diocese of Orange, which abuts the LA archdiocese, to inventory properties that could be repurposed for residential use.
He said their focus is on building apartment buildings and townhomes, primarily for rental rather than for sale, in an attempt to address the severe housing shortage and high costs in Southern California.
Unlike some dioceses, the Orange diocese has an electronic GIS (geographic information system) database showing all the properties it owns. Prepared by a civil engineering firm, the database includes details such as parcel numbers, acreage, title information, and demographic reports, which facilitate the planning and development process.
“Strategically, what we’re doing is we’re inventorying all of the property that the diocese and the parishes own, and trying to understand where there might be underutilized property that would make sense to develop some residential use,” Cameron said.
Cameron said he can’t yet share details about the housing projects they’re working on, but said they are looking to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Queen of Angels housing project as a model for how to take advantage of the new incentives created by SB 4.
“I think it’s great, and it’s exciting that they’re taking the lead and that they are able to find an opportunistic way to repurpose an underutilized property to meet the housing shortage in California,” he said.
“[We] look at them as a role model for what we’re trying to accomplish here in the Diocese of Orange.”
Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago with One Chicago Square in the background, a residential tower constructed on the former cathedral parking lot, which was sold in 2019. Courtesy of Maddy Johnson/Church Properties Initiative
John Meyer, a former president of the California-based Napa Institute who now works in real estate with J2 Development, emphasized the importance of viewing the Church’s vast real estate holdings as an asset rather than a liability.
Meyer said he is currently working with two Catholic entities on the East Coast on ground lease projects, one of which will fund the construction of a new Catholic Student Center at a university. He told CNA he often advises Catholic entities to lease the land they own rather than selling it, allowing the church to maintain ownership of the property while generating income.
Naturally, he noted, any real estate project the Church undertakes ought to align with the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel, and not merely be a means of making money.
“Any time we look at the Church’s real estate decisions, it’s got to be intertwined with mission and values,” he said.
“We’re not just developing for the sake of developing. What we want to do is we want to create value for the Church, and we also want to create value for the community. So working closely with the municipality to make sure that needs are met, and to be a good neighbor, is important.”
He said Church leaders should strongly consider taking advantage of incentives in various states such as California for projects like affordable housing, which align with the Church’s mission and provide both social and financial benefits.
“Priests and bishops aren’t ordained to do these things, and sometimes they have people in their diocese that have these abilities, and sometimes they don’t,” Meyer said.
“This [new law] in California has created an incentive that we can take advantage of, so we need to take advantage of that incentive…it’s allowing us to unlock potential value in land while at the same time serving a social good that’s part of the mission of the Church.”
Rome Newsroom, May 9, 2023 / 12:50 pm The head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Pope Tawadros II, will celebrate a liturgy in the Papal Basilica of St. John Lateran on Sunday to […]
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Green is the way forward. Vatican gardener Augusto Minosse and his staff are serving nature and culture with their customary dedication.
Green is the way forward. Vatican gardener Augusto Minosse and his staff are serving nature and culture with their customary dedication.