With a very simple but significant ceremony, on June 18, 2025, the streaming room of the Church of Sant’Alfonso in Rome was blessed. The ceremony was presided over by Father Francisco Stanula, Vicar General of the Congregation, with the participation of Father Vicente Soria, General Treasurer, Father Gregorio Ruszaj, Director of the Communications Office, Father Sanjay Tirkey, and Carlos Espinoza, representing the Communications Office. The members of the General Curia and the author of the project, Mr. Felipe Guimaraes, were present.
The sanctuary is also visible in the digital world
The General Treasurer’s Office, together with the Communications Office, developed and implemented the “Streaming Project” for the Church of St. Alphonsus in Rome, which promotes devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help from the Sanctuary in Rome, where the original icon is located. Thus, on preparation for the annual feast of Our Lady, on the very first day of the preparatory novena, it was decided to present this project to the world.
As Father Vicente Soria, General Treasurer, recalls, it is a task that Pope Pius IX, together with the miraculous icon, entrusted to the Redemptorists: “to make her known throughout the world”, and this project aims precisely at this objective. It is a project of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer to be actualized in this Jubilee Year 2025.
The idea was to give more visibility to the sanctuary, which is so important for the Redemptorist family, comments the author of the project. With three cameras inside the church and one outside that show the facade, we have the possibility here to manage the streaming. The system allows us to broadcast the celebrations not only on the website of the Sanctuary and on social media, but also to distribute the signal to television stations.
Father Gianni Congiu, Rector of the Church, commented on the project:
“I have always thought and supported that it was a great good and a precious service, to have the possibility of transmitting from our sanctuary both for those who would like to but cannot come to the sanctuary, either because they are old or ill or because they are geographically far away. At the same time, I have always thought of many people in the world who have a copy of our icon and venerate the Mother of Perpetual Help in the place where they live.
Having the possibility of being connected with our sanctuary means recognizing the close bond of the Icon from their venerated, with the place from which it originated. The transmission system that had already been functioning for a few years, already favored this close bond, and I believe that this also favored the restart of many pilgrimages to our sanctuary (about 600 in 6 months).”
A serious commitment for the Redemptorists
This update of the transmission system from our Sanctuary is certainly an important service for those who receive it, but it is also a stimulus and a commitment for us who serve this sanctuary. It is a stimulus in the sense that it must spur us to live the liturgy well, to propose it well, to make it a moment of intense and effective possibility of dialogue between us and God, between us and Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
It is a commitment because it places us in the need to be more attentive to the preparation of the liturgy, more attentive in our pastoral proposal, more sensitive in finding new initiatives of evangelization, convinced that this project offers us the possibility of reaching not only those who respond in person to the various initiatives, but also those who, sometimes even by chance, listen in their homes. So, for my part I express profound thanks to those who have carried out this project, to the technicians who have created it, and to those who, with their precious service, will make it function adequately”, he concluded.
Invitation to the sanctuary
We invite you to celebrate together the feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in her sanctuary, Rome next Friday, June 27, at 5:30 p.m., in person or via internet broadcast. The solemn Holy Mass will be presided over by H.E. Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin CSsR. We also invite you to visit our sanctuary, where Masses are celebrated every Sunday in Italian, Polish, English and Spanish, also available in live streaming.
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