2,000,000 PILGRIMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19033, 10 June 1924, Page 11

2,000,000 PILGRIMS

ROME’S HOLY YEAR PROBLEM. ROME, April 11. With less than nine months to go before the advent of the Holy Year, 1925, the attention not only of the Vatican, but also of the municipal and Government authorities in Rome is turning more and more to the housing problem. A quarter of a million people visited Rome during the last Holy Year, but no fewer than 2,000,000 pilgrims are expected to journey to the Eternal City during 1925. This means that at least 5000 persons will be entering Rome on an average each day. Calculating an average stay of four days (it is not likely to be less), there will be every day in Rome a population of some 20,000 people above the normal, and this figure may easily run up to 70,000 or 80,000 on certain special occasions, such as the ceremonies of opening the Holy Door, and of the canonisation of Saints. This is a problem of the utmost gravity for a city like Rome, which even in a normal year turns away many would-be visitors for lack of accommodation.

RATIONS FOR PILGRIMS. The Vatican is doing its best to meet this situation, and is making arrangements for many hundreds of the poorer pilgrims to sleep in the various convents and monasteries with which Rome is dotted, and is having kitchens fitted up in Santa Marta, where rations, very much like soldiers’ rations, will be distributed at cost price. The Vatican and the municipality together are working out a scheme for building large dormitories, capable of holding thousands of beds, in temporary buildings on waste ground belonging to the Vatican under the walls of the Apostolic palace, and on ground belonging to the municipality on the embankment of the Tiber, near the hospital of Santo Spirito. No special arrangements are being made for the rich visitors, as it is always possible to obtain rooms if one is ready to pay the prices askod. The Holy Year was instituted in 1300. In 1475 it was arranged that it should be celebrated every 25 years. It has always been a period during which Roman Catholics have made special efforts to make pilgrimages to Rome.