Pompei, Prelature Nullius of

POMPEI (Beata Vergine Maria del Santo Rosario in Valle di P.), Prelature Nullius of. - Valle di P. was a place inhabited by little more than a hundred farmers when the lawyer Bartolo Longo (v.) began to concern himself with their spiritual life. On Nov. 13, 1875, he had brought there an image of the Madonna of the Rosary depicted between St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena.

The veneration of that image gave rise to a Sanctuary, which soon became famous, and around which important works of spiritual and social assistance arose; ever more numerous pilgrimages led to the care of the Sanctuary being entrusted first to the Dominicans, then to the Redemptorists, also assisted by the secular clergy. On March 13, 1894, Leo XIII accepted the gift made to him by Longo and his wife of the Sanctuary building, of the institutes and possessions that completed it, and of all that it contained; he removed the place from the diocese of Nola and subjected it directly to the Holy See, placing over it a prelate as apostolic delegate. On Apr. 20, 1926, by decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory, the Sanctuary, with all the acquisitions that had been added to it in the meantime, was erected into a prelature nullius dioecesis under the title of the Virgin of the Rosary; and by the subsequent apostolic constitution of May 8, Beatissimae Virginis (AAS, 18 [1926], p. 403 ff.), Pius XI granted the prelate ordinary jurisdiction, with the obligation of giving each year a financial report of his administration and of having recourse to the Holy See whenever the gravity of the cases should require it. Three ecclesiastics, one of whom with authorities as vicar general, designated by the S. Congr. Concistoriale, assist the prelate, invested with episcopal dignity, in the exercise of his duties. The first prelate was Msgr. Carlo Cremonesi, pontifical almoner, later cardinal. The care of the basilica was entrusted at first to the Dominicans, then from 1934 to the Redemptorists with the help of the secular clergy, which recently took over its direction, the Redemptorists remaining as Penitentiaries.

Enrico Josi