The word of the President

The Virtual Museum of the Brotherhoods and Popular Piety

Among the statutory aims of the Confederation assigned to us by the Italian Episcopal Conference we read: "to promote the conservation, enhancement and recovery of the cultural, architectural, artistic, historical and archival heritage of the Confraternities" .

St. John Paul II on the occasion of the International Jubilee of Confraternities in 1984 said: "Today the urgency of evangelization requires that the confraternities also participate more intensely and more directly in the work that the Church carries out to bring light, redemption, grace of Christ to the men of our time ... and continued to this apostolic purpose can and must also serve the impressive artistic heritage accumulated by the brotherhood ... all this can and must serve the ecclesial apostolate, especially liturgical and catechetical ".

The artistic, cultural and devotional assets of the Confraternities are works desired not by powerful and rich patrons, but by the heart of simple people whose only wealth was and is faith in God and devotional love expressed through the popular Pietà.

Innumerable are the material and immaterial goods generated in the Confraternities. Among those materials we can mention and not only: medallions, crosses and processional statues, banners, dresses, churches, chapels, paintings, etc.

Among the immaterial ones: devotional songs, prayers, liturgies, processional rites.

All great beauties rich not only in metals, stones or precious fabrics but rich in cultural and cultic values.

All small or large jewels not known by everyone, perhaps hidden or camouflaged in the many oratories or confraternity churches and many intangible assets expressed only with oral traditions.

By making them known, we can increase their value and help preserve their integrity.

Our Confederation could not fail to respond to these calls.

The portal "Virtual Museum of Confraternities and Popular Piety" that the Confederation has created and that I strongly desired in my years of presidency, will help to achieve all this.

The portal will be able to contain not only material coming from Confraternities of the Dioceses of Italy, but also from those from all over the world and to achieve this the Pan-European Forum of Confraternities will become an active part.

I would like to thank the confrere Giuseppe Calarota for the graphic design and management of the portal and the brothers Antonio Caroleo and Domenico Rotella, for the design and care of the cultural and informative contents.

I invite you all to see its contents and to send pictures of those goods that are in the possession of your brotherhoods.

In remembering our devotion to our Patron Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati,

I greet you fraternally.

Dr. Francesco Antonetti

President