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                                  VIS-Press releases   
      
   PRESENTATION OF THE MISSIONARY MUSEUM OF PROPAGANDA FIDE   
      
   VATICAN CITY, 9 DEC 2010 (VIS) - This morning at the Rome headquarters of the   
   Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, a press conference was held to   
   present the new Missionary Museum of Propaganda Fide.   
      
   The conference was presented by Fr. Massimo Cenci P.I.M.E., under secretary of   
   the congregation; Francesco Buranelli, co-ordinator of the missionary museum's   
   academic committee, and Ludovico Ortona, president of the Italian "Societa per   
   lo sviluppo dell'arte, della cultura e dello spettacolo" (ARCUS).   
      
   Fr. Cenci explained how the new institution, located in the Roman palazzo which   
   has been the headquarters of the congregation for nearly four centuries, "is a   
   complete museum, which not only has artistic value but which was conceived and   
   created also and above all with a view to its specifically pastoral function".   
      
   Francesco Buranelli recalled the fact that "it was Pope Gregory XV (Alessandro   
   Ludovisi 1621-1623) who, with his 'Inscrutabili Divinae', founded the Holy   
   Congregation 'de Propaganda Fide' ... to promote and co-ordinate all   
   evangelising activity in non-Christian lands".   
      
   Buranelli then reviewed the contents of the museum, referring first to the   
   Chapel of the Magi, originally an elliptical construction by Gian Lorenzo   
   Bernini. "It was Cardinal Antonio Barberini who chose to dedicate the church to   
   the Baby Jesus, adored by the Magi", he said. "The Magi symbolically represent   
   the kings of the pagan peoples who, guided by the star, were the first to go   
   out to meet Christ and thus to gain the faith. The theme of the Epiphany is,   
   then, extremely appropriate for a chapel intended to welcome the students of   
   Propaganda Fide, who were destined to go out and transmit the good news". With   
   the advent of Pope Innocent X (Giovanni Battista Pamphilj) the work was   
   entrusted to Borromini under whose direction Bernini's church was demolished   
   and the Chapel of the Magi rebuilt between 1662 and 1664.   
      
   The co-ordinator of the academic committee explained how the first hall of the   
   museum contains a video presentation on the congregation's origins, history and   
   missionary activity. This is followed by a multimedia room in which visitors   
   can consult the "Agenzia Fides" archive of more than ten thousand photographs,   
   showing voyages in mission lands since the beginning of the twentieth century.   
      
   The museum route also comprehends the Barberini Library "which has been   
   completely restored for the occasion". The structure has a coffered wooden   
   ceiling and a gallery with "portraits of certain illustrious students of the   
   College".   
      
   Finally, "there is the Newman Chapel", Buranelli explained. Following his   
   conversion to Catholicism, Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman "lived and   
   studied in the College of Propaganda Fide, and there celebrated his first   
   Mass".   
      
   For his part, Ludovico Ortona noted that this new project "gives the public a   
   chance to see works which up to now were not available to them. Thus it enables   
   not only the conservation, recovery and restoration of our artistic and   
   cultural heritage, but also opens the way to new possibilities, making   
   available all the hidden masterpieces ... which are a measure of the greatness   
   of Italian cultural and artistic history".   
   OP/VIS 20101209 (520)   
      
   SUMMARY   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS =Meridian, MS= bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)