At Mass last night Cardinal Vincent Nichols took possession of his titular church, San Alfonso di Liguori all'Esquilino.
The nineteenth-century church is dedicated to Saint Alphonsus Ligouri, the founder of the Redemptorist order, and is famous for its icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, which was painted in the late fifteenth century.
All cardinals are given churches in order to symbolically continue the ancient tradition that clergy of the city elected the Bishop of Rome – the Pope.
In his homily, the cardinal revealed his connections with the church. These included numerous friends who are Redemptorists and the fact that his predecessor in Westminster, Cardinal Francis Bourne, always stayed in the Redemptorist house attached to the church when he was in Rome.
“I first came to this church one Easter, many years ago, with an English Redemptorist priest whom some of you will remember. He was Fr William Maram, better known, at least in his later years, as Bill. He was a great character and had a wonderful love for all things Redemptorist,” Cardinal Nichols explained.
Perhaps the closest connection with the church is the cardinal’s devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, which he said went back to his childhood. He said he had an icon of the image in his office at Archbishop’s House, Westminster.
“It draws us to see the almost incredible: that through our suffering and pain, whatever form it may take, we can become part of this great work of Jesus. We can unite our sufferings with his and offer them to the Father,” he said. “So I see this blessed icon, here most especially and wherever it is to be seen, as an antidote to the shallowness of our lives and of so many aspects of our times.”
St Alphonsus Church, which is situated near Termini train station, has British roots. It was designed by George Wigley, a Scottish architect who helped found the Society of St Vincent de Paul in Britain, and was funded by Fr Edward Douglas, a Redemptorist priest from a noble Scottish family who was received into the Church.
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