Pompei (Beata Vergine Maria del Santo Rosario in Valle di P.), Prelature Nullius of

POMPEI (BEATA VERGINE MARIA DEL S. ROSARIO IN VALLE DI P.), PRELATURE NULLIUS. — Valle di P. was a place inhabited by little more than a hundred LEONZIO (v.) began to concern himself with their spiritual life. On 13 November 1875 he had an image of Our Lady of the Rosary, depicted between s. Domenico and s. Caterina da Siena, brought there.

Veneration of that image led to the establishment of a Shrine, which soon became famous, around which important works of spiritual and social assistance arose; increasingly numerous pilgrimages resulted in the care of the Shrine being entrusted first to the Dominicans and then to the Redemptorists, also assisted by the secular clergy. On 13 March 1894, Leone XIII accepted the gift made to him by Longo and his wife of the Shrine building, the institutions and properties that completed it, and everything it contained; he removed the place from the diocese of Nola and subjected it directly to the Holy See, appointing a prelate as apostolic delegate. On 20 April 1926, by decree of the S. Congr. Concistoriale, the Shrine, together with all the acquisitions that had meanwhile been added to it, was erected as a prelature nullius dioecesis under the title of the Virgin of the Rosary; and by the subsequent apostolic constitution of 8 May, Beatissimae Virginis (AAS, 18 [1926], pp. 403 ff.), Pio XI granted the prelate ordinary jurisdiction, with the obligation of presenting an annual financial report of his administration and of having recourse to the Holy See whenever the gravity of the cases required II. Three ecclesiastics, one of whom with

(from Fitché-Martin-Frutas, I, 2nd ed., Torino 1918, fig. 1 — from CIL, IV, fasc. 18)
POMPEI - Christian inscriptions now disappeared.

With the authority of general vicars, designated by the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory, they assist the prelate, who is invested with episcopal dignity, in the exercise of his duties. The first prelate was Msgr. Carlo Cremonesi, papal almoner, later a cardinal. The care of the basilica was entrusted at first to the Dominicans, then, from 1934, to the Redemptorists, with the assistance of the secular clergy, which has recently assumed its direction, while the Redemptorists remain as confessors.

Enrico Josi