Highlights from the cultural world of Rome
Hugh O'Flaherty was a human rescuer during the Nazi terror in Rome in 1943/44. He helped about 6,000 people fleeing from the German priests' college in the Vatican. A small booklet about this has now been published by Schnell & Steiner with many new pictures that vividly illustrate the events of that time.
Prof. Dr. Rainald Becker (Munich) will speak on "The Geschwister Scholl - Christians in Opposition to Hitler" at the German Embassy to the Holy See in conjunction with the Hanns Seidel Foundation on 23 February. This is an event with invited guests. Becker has already lectured several times at the RIGG (for ex. at the conference Päpstlichkeit und Patriotismus).
Every year during Lent, the Christians of Rome maintain the tradition of the station services, which originally took place with the participation of the popes. The Collegium Cultorum Martyrum, founded on 2 February 1879 at the Campo Santo Teutonico (see on Adolf Hytrek in: Personenlexikon zur Christlichen Archäologie), tries to maintain this tradition and publishes the calendar for this year as well. From the 7th century until the last liturgical reform, the Roman station churches were in the missal (cf. U. M. Lang, The Roman Mass), after which they were deleted for the universal Church.
Dr Matthias Ambros, Professor at the Canonical Faculty of the Gregorian University in Rome, and Joachim Hake, Director of the Catholic Academy in Berlin and Chairman of the Leadership Circle of the 24 Catholic Academies in Germany, were appointed Consultors of the Dicastery for Culture and Education on 18 February. Hake belongs to the Görres Society, Ambros also to the Roman Institute of the Görres Society. Hake will give the Görres Lecture in Rome on 25 February.
On 9-10 February, a conference on Pius XII from 1939 to 1958 (the year of his death) will be held at the Belgian Academy and the Netherlands Institute. The conference will make a first assessment of the files that are now freely accessible up to 1958. Among others, Johan Ickx will speak.
On February 1, the newly appointed Rector Konrad Bestle (diocese of Augsburg in Bavaria), who until now was Curate at the Anima (and thus also took care of the free semesters and the German School), begins his office. He succeeds Rector Prelate Dr. Hans-Peter Fischer (Freiburg i.Br.), who held this office for twelve years. Fischer had been discharged on December 8 with a ceremony on the part of the Bishops' Conference and the Archconfraternity as well as on the part of the Görres Society.
On Friday 10 February, Cardinal Kurt Koch will celebrate a Requiem in memoriam of Pope Benedict XVI at the Campo Santo Teutonico at 6 pm.
The Vatican Magazine has dedicated the February issue to Pope Benedict XVI, in which the personality Ratzinger and the Pope are honoured with knowledge and sympathy. This richly illustrated issue is worth ordering!
Canon lawyer Dr Matthias Ambros, who has been a member of the RIGG since 2016, comes from the diocese of Passau (Bishop Oster). He has been appointed Second Ecclesiastical Advocate (Promotor iustitiae substitutus) at the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature of the Roman Curia. Among other things, he stands up for the rights of those who see themselves treated unjustly by the ecclesiastical administrative jurisdiction. Ambros was first at Campo Santo Teutonico in 2004/05 as a sabbatical student and at that time witnessed Joseph Ratzinger's election as Pope and his proclamation as Benedict XVI in St Peter's Square.
Ambros in the library of the german college
Transfer of the body to S. Peter
The tireless and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord, one of the greatest German intellectual figures and philanthropists of our epoch, Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI since April 19, 2005, passed away on the commemoration day of the holy pope Silvester. Thus the Roman Institute of the Görres Society loses its most prominent member and one of its most loyal supporters.
Marco Buonocore died at the age of 68 on 24 December. He was one of the undisputed pillars of Vatican self-respect in the field of epigraphic-historical sciences, perhaps one of the last representatives of traditional scholarship in the service of the Holy See.
Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
