Titulo vacante

With the Apostolic See filled with the new Supreme Pontiff, the title of S. Roberto Bellarmino is now vacant. I paid a visit to the titular church formally occupied by Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio this morning.

The church was dedicated to the Jesuit cardinal, saint, and Doctor of the Church, St. Robert Bellarmine, who is similar in many ways to our present pope. The coat-of-arms was never hung on the façade of the church, and so nothing needs to go down. Given the circumstances, I am sure that the parish church will have a commemorative plaque for her former cardinal priest.

I also revisited the Church of Santa Maria Vergine Addolorata a Piazza Buenos Aires (St. Mary the Sorrowful Virgin at the Buenos Aires Square), the Argentine national church in Rome.

The beautiful church features a replica of the statue of Our Lady of Lujan, the patroness of Argentina. The original 16th-century statue of the Virgin of Luján is featured in the National Basilica of Our Lady of Lujan, 60 km away from the capital and metropolitan see of Buenos Aires, the proud archdiocese once governed by Pope Francis.