Day 2 - The Catholic Police Guild Pilgrimage To Rome 2025
- Paul Connolly
- Nov 22, 2025
- 2 min read
Tuesday 14 October
St Callistus I, Pope and Martyr
The morning was taken up with a bit of free time for the group before we met up and took an open top bus tour of Rome to see all the usual tourist sites and fully appreciate the Rome traffic jams and the Italian way of driving !
Following the tour and some lunch, the group assembled at the Venerable English College for daily Mass.
In his homily, our National Chaplain Fr. Barry Lomax mentioned the terrorist attack that had taken place recently at the synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, the holiest of days in the Jewish calendar, and how the message of hope we carried with us on our pilgrimage felt especially poignant as despite the trauma and fear experienced by those affected hope remained in their hearts and prayers - a quiet resilience in the face of evil.
Following Mass, the group made its way via Romes very efficient Metro system to visit our first of the Papal Basilicas Santa Maria Maggiore (St Mary Major). According to the traditional story of its foundation, Our Lady appeared in a dream to the Patrician John and Pope Liberius exhorting them to build a church dedicated to her on the exact spot where she would cause snow to fall. On the morning of 5 August in the year 358, snow was seen on the Esquiline Hill, the highest of Romes hills, outlining the perimeter of what was to become the new church. Today that miraculous snowfall is still remembered when white rose petals fall from the ceiling of the Basilica during the feast day liturgy.
The Basilica is home to the most important of all Marian icons, the Salus Populi Romani (Our Lady Saviour of the Roman People). Tradition attributes the artwork to St Luke the Evangelist and patron of painters.
The Basilica also contains the mortal remains of Ss Matthew and Jerome and seven Popes.
The relic of the holy crib, the bedding on which the baby Jesus was laid is under the Papal altar and it was here that the first Christmas Midnight Mass was celebrated and for centuries the Popes came here to carry on that tradition.
Pope Francis placed all his apostolic journeys under the protection of Our Lady, Salus Populi Romani, stopping off to pray at the icon before his departure from Rome and again on his return and it was this Basilica where he willed that he be laid to rest between the Pauline Chapel, which houses the Salus Populi Romani and the side altar dedicated to St Francis of Assisi.
His tombstone is a simple and relatively discreet slab of stone which just bears the inscription Franciscus.
Shortly after his election, Pope Leo XIV visited the Basilica as part of his instillation as Bishop of Rome and also to pay his respects at the tomb of his predecessor Pope Francis and to renew his devotion to Our Lady, Salus Populi Romani.
Full details about the Basilica can be found via :
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