Independent Research Project

Sijia, Conner, and I will be focusing on religious festivals and processions that go on in the Eternal city. We will each choose one procession and one festival to be focusing our personal research on.

We spent some time online trying to find a specific festivals. It was really challenging to find one that takes place while we are here. This is a really important aspect because then we could see and feel the emotions and the experience. Last time we had check ins Julie showed us this book that we could get that tells all of the goings ons on the week. We will use this tool and hopefully Lisa and Julie can help us get steered in the right direction.

Here are few possible festivals/processions that we have found, one already has happened the others we will just miss one is on April 2nd.

The Pope leads a torchlit "Way of the Cross" procession to the Colosseum on Good Friday.

Capodanno Festival: This festival technically only lasts one day although in combination with New Years Day it constitutes two days. This festival occurs on December 31st annually and involves fireworks and concerts in the public squares of Rome to see in the New Year. The religious highlight of New Years Day involves a procession which takes place in the catacombs.

On one of the longest days of the year, in the golden twilight so characteristic of Rome, thousands gathered along the crest of the Esquiline Hill to participate in the 740th celebration of Corpus Christi. Carrying on a tradition he began many years ago as archbishop of Krakow, Pope John Paul II accompanied the Blessed Sacrament in an hour-long procession along the Via Merulana from the basilica of St. John Lateran, to that of St. Mary Major.