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In Rome for a few days covering for the Rome Correspondent Richard Owen who is on his summer break. At the top of the Aventine Hill, where the wealthiest noble Roman families have dwelled for more than two millennia, is one of the finest old churches in Christendom, Santa Sabina, now in the care of the Dominicans but built in the fifth century on the oratory erected over the tomb of Sabina, an early Christian martyr, and her maid Seraphia who converted her. They were clubbed, scourged and then beheaded for refusing to recant. Eliza Allen Starr's Pilgrims and Shrines has a good account of their martyrdom. Restorers working on the church uncovered a remarkable mural, unveiled this week, which by placing Mary on a throne with Jesus and Sabina and her maid next to the Apostles Peter and Paul, gives an idea of the importance of women such as these in building the early church from nothing. Wealthy noblewoomen such as Sabina were the women who provided worship space, often in secret, for new Christians in the face of great risk from persecution of emperors such as Hadrian, who build our wall in Britain and who in the end did for Sabina. Significantly perhaps, the church is on the old site of the Temple of Juno, Queen of the Gods.

See my story in The Times.

The Rome-based art historian Elisabeth Lev told me: 'The Santa Sabina fresco, which most likely dates from the seventh century, illustrates figures connected with the Third Council of Constantinople of 680, and these Roman legates Theodore, George and perhaps the future Pope John V were world travelers in the interest of Church teachings. The world this faded fresco allows to glimpse is one of lively intellectual and ecumenical activity. The iconography of Peter and Paul and the two saints, most likely Serafia and Sabina, are important for grounding the ancient devotions at this Church situated on one of the seven hills of Rome, well-known to St Jerome and once home to St Paul.'

I have reproduced her comments in full over at Articles of Faith .


Beauty flowers in the famous orange grove next to Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill, Rome


The Dominican priest at the church, Padre Francesco Maria Ricci OP, did not go as far as support the ordination of women but he did say he believed women should be given a greater role in the Church, as the Pope himself has indeed indicated. The Church is what it is today thanks to these women. Immediate change is likely, but I can't help but wonder if the Church of tomorrow might be shaped by the women of today who are starting to speak out, such as Pat Brown of Catholic Women's Ordination. My report of their bus campaign planned for the Pope's visit in September is also in The Times.They hope to mirror the success of the atheist bus campaign with buses bearing women's ordination campaign posters running up and down the routes past Westminster Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament during the Pope's time in those institutions. In the diocese of Rome, meanwhile, a Berlusconi-owned conservative magazine has done an expose of gay priests. A reporter went along to a club with some priests, actually filmed himself enjoying illicit relationships with one of them and then filmed the priest celebrating Mass afterwards. The Rome diocese condemned the priests and called on all gay priests in the closet to both leave the closet and the priesthood. The Vatican dismissed the story as nothing more than attempt to wake up Italians as they snooze under their umbrellas in the sun. I've blogged it with some links to the Panorama story here.. Temperatures here are pushing 42 C. Even the air conditioning in my hotel is struggling to cope.



A wisteria wilts by the Tiber in temperatures of 42 degrees.

July 24, 2010

Limit to courage? There is no limit to courage.
Gabriele D'Annunzio